Afrobeats singer Simi Kosoko has expressed shock that Kenyans don’t understand pidgin English.
She stated this while sharing her fascinating experience about Kenya on the 90’s Baby Show.
She revealed that during a trip to Kenya, she was surprised to discover that not all Africans speak ‘Pidgin English’, a dialect she assumed was universally understood across the continent.
While collaborating with a Kenyan artist, she was asked to translate her pidgin lyrics, leaving her taken aback.
“I went to Kenya years ago, and we were supposed to do a remix of my song with a Kenyan artist, and then there is a lot of pidgin in the song. They asked me to write my lyrics down and then ask, ‘Can you translate?’ and I go, ‘What the fuck do you mean to translate? It’s English. It’s pidgin, but it’s English.’”
This encounter was a culture shock for Simi, as she had assumed Pidgin English was a common language among Africans.
She humorously recalled thinking, “Are we not the same?”
“Before then, I had thought that everybody in Africa could speak pidgin the way we speak pidgin, so that was a culture shock for me. I thought these were our people; are we not the same?” Simi asked.
Simi also shared that her 4-year-old daughter, Adejare, has picked up some pidgin from her and her husband, Adekunle Gold, and often uses it to ask questions or engage in playful conversations.
“My daughter even started speaking pidgin by herself because we speak it around her, to our friends. So sometimes she would be like, ‘Wetin you do o’ and I love that because you need to have a gossip language around people,” Simi said.