It’s not hard to imagine Nigerian Gossip blogs having a field day after a fan gave Adekunle Gold the perfect set-up to make blog headlines, with a question pertaining to his 2015 single “Orente”.

You see, yesterday was Simi’s birthday and to celebrate, she gave herself a birthday shout out on her Instagram page where she listed all her birth names, the same names set to mushy lyrics from Adekunle’s “Orente”. This of course sparked the interest of many who have speculated about the two as ‘lovebirds’. And eventually, a curious fan quizzed Adekunle Gold on the plausible correlation between “Orente” and Simi’s names.

In response, came this magnanimous tweet from Adekunle Gold

As expected, to the glory of God and Nigerian bloggers, Adekunle Gold and Simi’s names were slapped across headlines, reigniting the long-standing speculation about a romantic relationship between the two once again. The ridiculousness of the act that started it all however, lies therein.

To give a bit of context, not long ago, pictures of Adekunle and Simi surfaced online. The Internet and perhaps the rest of Nigeria automatically assumed the two were romantically involved. The story would go on to become a near-scandal in the following years after Simi’s double collaboration with rapper, Falz (“Soldier”, “Jamb Question”) and media speculations of a love triangle fueled by Snapchat clips and Instagram pictures from Simi and Falz’s accounts.

The truth of the trio might never be actually known and we don’t particularly care. But we do care, that Simi, Adekunle Gold and Falz have turned these rumours and speculations into a publicity churn, stirring the pot just before any of them have any large projects they need to publicize and letting the media blogs do all the work for them.

We are collectively tired of artists trying to score another Linda Ikeji headline by taking advantage of the sensibilities of their fans. The reality of this is perhaps one of them—in this case, Adekunle Gold—or none of them wants to give up on the whole narrative of the love triangle, which has gone from mildly cute, to very unpleasant. But truth is, except there is a plot twist, to make this a little more interesting, they need let this love triangle storyline die a quick death.

The real blame however should be cast on whoever is managing Simi’s brand. There are already too few female artists and her management keeps letting the noise of these pseudo-romantic narratives drown her actual talent. They even did the unthinkable by rolling out what would have been Simi’s debut, project Chemistry, with a pre-wedding shoot, like it wasn’t bad enough Falz had a major collaborative role in the music itself. Simi and her team desperately needs to kill this narrative that keeps her talent and career in light of two relatively more successful male artists. We deserve better. She deserves better.

Nonetheless, Happy Birthday Simi, we love you still.

musicblog