Original Baby

"Original Baby" is Simi at her most quietly self-possessed — a compliment song that doubles as a statement about authenticity in a culture saturated with imitation. The groove is soft and buoyant, driven by a rounded bass, gentle Afro-pop percussion and clean guitar accents, mixed with the airiness that runs through *Simisola* and separates her from her louder contemporaries. She sings with a smile in the throat: light vibrato, effortless upper register, phrasing that lags slightly behind the beat so the whole thing feels unhurried. The lyric praises someone for being genuinely themselves — not a copy, not a performance — using the Nigerian slang sense of "original" as a mark of integrity rather than novelty, which lands as both flirtation and moral compliment. Woven through are Yoruba endearments and pidgin turns that make the affection feel local and lived-in. In context it belongs to a record that argued you could make deeply Nigerian pop that was gentle, melodic and album-shaped rather than single-shaped, and it helped establish her as a songwriter's singer. It suits a late afternoon with nothing scheduled, headphones on a bus, or the specific pleasure of thinking warmly about someone who has never once tried to be anyone else.