Sinner: Adekunle Gold and Simi and the art of monetising marriage

23 Jul 2021 - 20:04

Yesterday, I noticed clips from Adekunle Gold’s new music video were getting heavy attention across social media. It’s easy to see why: it showed tastefully intimate exchanges between the man and his equally talented spouse, Simi.

Adekunle Gold and Simi.

Unlike some of their colleagues, their individual rise to fame wasn’t exactly via social media, but everybody plays the game these days and they understand that, together, they have something regular people don’t have: If everybody else has to figure out their photogenicity or their talent or their talent for controversy, the already famous person has an extra thing to exploit: their real lives – or an approximation of it. It hardly matters if it’s faked.

They also have something their colleagues don’t have. They are a married couple at the height of their fame. When a few years ago, Wizkid exploited his alleged affair with Tiwa Savage by having Tiwa Savage and himself in languid, intimate choreography in the video for ‘Fever’, social media exploded. The element of “taboo” (she’s older and they’re unmarried) ensured that the video attracted an obscene level of attention.

By contrast, Adekunle Gold and Simi are married – which means their union is endorsed by society but that does nothing to slake the public’s thirst for a look inside a famous marriage. They have provided a semblance of it from time to time on their social media accounts and exchanges. But once in a while, they approach the matter as professionals aware of their fame. So that, for a couple that refused to publicly acknowledge their dating and kept their wedding ceremony away from their fans for a while, they have been exceptionally forthcoming about their marriage when it suits them. The first major professionalising of their union came with the release of ‘Duduke’, Simi’s song for their then-unborn child. The streams went through the roof. On her YouTube account, the video for ‘Duduke’ is the most viewed; the video in second place is twenty million views behind. Matrimony, you could definitely say, has been exceptionally good for business.

It remains to be seen whether the video for Adekunle Gold’s ‘Sinner’, which is a song about lust, would be as profitable. It probably doesn’t need to be, given that a day after its release, it is the second video on YouTube’s music trending list in Nigeria. As far as metrics go, that is already indicative of success. The impressions on social media must be ridiculously high as well. They would be right to pomp some champagne.

‘Sinner’ is a blissful slow-burn jam, it features a four-time Grammy nominee (Lucky Daye) and anyone who attended Sunday school would notice that the lyrics are an impressive interpretation of King David’s infatuation with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba – but none of that is why clips from the video have gone viral. Adekunle Gold and Simi know this – as do the many people who have now cumulatively seen the view more than two hundred thousand times. “Marriage requires hard work,” they say. “Famous marriages require even harder work.”

Well, thank God the pay is good.