24-YEAR-OLD Sandrine Olive Basa Simbi, a poet and aspiring song-writer, is currently working with local music artiste, Confiance Munyaneza, professionally known as ‘Confy’, on his latest extended playlist (EP) which is composed of six songs. The young poet says that writing the introduction on Confy’s EP was a dream come true. “I was excited and couldn’t grasp how I got to work with Confy,” she says. “Confy wanted his EP to have a poetic introduction piece, so through our mutual called Alan, we met up, and I introduced him to some of my work, he listened and was impressed,” Simbi reveals. Confy, she says, played her some of the songs on the EP while it was still in production. “After that, I went home with the songs, there were on replay the whole night then at 2am, inspiration hit and I wrote a piece, sent it to him, but he was offline for a few days.” He got back to her after listening to it, and called her piece epic, which, she says, she couldn’t believe, till the day it was officially on his EP. Simbi says she is grateful for the trust Confy had in her. “Like that with him trusting my work, we made something great and it boosted my confidence, it made a huge impact on my life. I will always be grateful to him for this opportunity.” Confy praises the young poet’s work because it has given him another set of fans. “It gave me a bigger audience which I needed for sure, she is so talented in writing and now my EP has been sold with Azuri Music Distributors,” Confy says. “I’m a woman, a daughter, a sister, a friend, I love movies, music, books and everything that helps me to meet people and be around them, as well as going out or for concerts,” Simbi says about herself. In one of her poems, she wrote, “Reading is my true meal, it feeds my brain effectively, my family is my anchor, it is always there regardless, shopping is my meditation, it takes away life’s bitterness, my people are my rainbow, they add a new flavour.” Simbi has performances at Ingabo Corner, Ikawa coffee and many other poetry stages. Besides poetry and writing, she is doing her Bachelor’s degree in IT. In her free time, she develops her fashion skills and photography portfolio because taking photos is second to writing in what makes her feel more alive.
