Simba na Yanga: the first credit, as Di rappers

Every catalogue has a first line, and Irene's is Simba na Yanga (Mkali nani). It reached streaming platforms on 1 November 2025 under the alias Di rappers, the name on the Audiomack account she had opened in Dar es Salaam in January 2025, where the song appeared on 27 October. An auto-generated YouTube upload followed on 31 October. The producer credit is MIKMER; the record is ℗ 2025 Di rappers, with no label behind it.

The title borrows the biggest rivalry in Tanzanian sport, Dar es Salaam's derby between Simba SC and Yanga SC, and the bracket asks the only question that matters on derby day: mkali nani, who is hotter. At 3:51 it runs longer than any of her later singles.

The promo

Two weeks before release, on 13 October 2025, she posted a TikTok promo tagging Commander Rich, who would later share the Wasichana Wanachana cyphers with her, and the Kenyan rapper Ssaru, with hashtags for both Tanzanian and Kenyan TikTok. It is the earliest of her TikToks the site can date. The song has 1,421 views on the YouTube upload and 142 plays on Audiomack as of 5 October 2026.

What came next moved fast: the TikTok reply that reached 3.5 million plays on 20 December, Ndoto as Miss Rapper TZ on 24 December, and the cypher in February. Simba na Yanga is where the count starts. All of it was released under earlier names, Di rappers, Miss Rapper TZ and Miss Nasty, before she took the name Irene in October 2026.

Listen to the streaming upload here, then open the release page to stream Simba na Yanga, and see Commander Rich and Ssaru on the people page.