FEATURE:
Spotlight
Shenseea
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EVEN though she has been active…
PHOTO CREDIT: Phylicia J. L. Munn for Rolling Stone
since 2015 and recording music for a while, her new album, ALPHA, has brought her to the attention of a lot of people. Her anticipated debut has captured a lot of attention and buzz. Shenseea is a remarkable Jamaican-born artist whose Dancehall sound and vibe is sensational and fresh. I am going to come to a review of her amazing new album. Before that, there are a few interviews worth bringing in. I want to take things back to 2017. Wild Cat Sound spent time an artist who, then, was seen as a newcomer. It was fascinating reading about how she started her career and how things got going:
“HI SHENSEEA, HOW DID YOU START YOUR MUSICAL JOURNEY?
I started my musical journey May 2016 when Romeich who was my boss being the fact that i did promotion, later on discovered my talent as I broadcasted videos of me singing my own songs on social medias (Whats App, Instagram etc) we both came up with an agreement for him to be more than just a promotional boss but to the manager of a career I have always wanted to pursue, which ofcourse is to be an artiste. We then recorded my first single "Jiggle Jiggle" and released it in July 2016. We further on shot a video for this single being the fact that we were receiving great feedback off the audio release.
HOW MUCH HARD IS FOR YOU - AS A WOMAN - TO BE A GOOD ARTIST AND WHY?
Its not just for a woman.. I believe to gain success entirely is hard regardless if you are a male or female. We should always work for what we want. To focus on the complications is where you are already doubting yourself. Do what must be done and do it right.
WHICH ARTISTS INSPIRED YOU THE MOST AND WHY?
I wouldn't necessarily say an artiste inspired me. I've always been a lover of music ever since I heard it and discovered that I had been given the talent to sing”.
In 2020, The Guardian chatted with Shenseea. Having put out consistently good music and put in the hard graft, she was representing Jamaican Dancehall like nobody else. Small wonder what she was exciting people! Not that the sound is niche at all. She has definitely put Jamaican Dancehall in the spotlight:
“Four years later, Shenseea is known as Jamaica’s Princess of Dancehall. She has 2.1 million Instagram followers and a slew of hits across the Caribbean. She calls her fans her “Shenyengs”. “I’m as big as I can get in Jamaica,” she says. “But everything that I had to do before, to get to where I am today, I’ll do it all over. I love to feel the hunger.”
Jamaican stars before her serve as proof that hunger alone is not enough to go global – obstacles have ranged from visa issues to a wariness of patois and colourism. But Shenseea is making savvy moves: she has a creative partnership with Interscope labelmate Rvssian, a young Jamaican producer lauded for his Spanish-language reggaeton songs and his modern take on dancehall. Together, they instinctively understand the new genre-hopping, globally focused streaming generation. “We keep the Jamaican roots but we’re trying to branch out,” she says. It’s working: their most recent single, IDKW, has had more than 4m YouTube views since its release in mid January.
Shenseea also knows how to stay on lips beyond the music. In the video for Blessed, she snuggles up to a hot blond woman in bed. It is a bold move for an artist working in a notoriously homophobic genre: it sparked a massive debate in Jamaica, with a leading LGBTQ ambassador calling the move “raw, radical, and disruptive”.
Did she intend to become a gay icon? “Of course!” Wasn’t it pandering to the male gaze? “That too,” she says, with a cheeky smile. “They always wanna see something extra from females. We have to be doing the most! Killing ourselves! Doing some stunt!” More than that: as with her eye on cross-genre pollination, Shenseea knew she was making a timely statement. Buju Banton had just apologised for his old homophobic lyrics, reflecting a change in attitudes in the country. Plus, she had the safety blanket of a US record deal: “LGBT is very big in America.”
But dancehall’s recent modernisation has failed to encompass colourism. Last year, Spice (a close friend of Shenseea’s) said how much harder it had been for her to break the global market as a dark-skinned performer. Shenseea is lighter-skinned, of Korean and African-Jamaican descent, but she says it has been hard for her, too. “Because of my light skin, people say that I didn’t have to work hard enough for it.”
Her work ethic is, evidently, beyond reproach: she is now recording a full album with Rvssian. She has already had shoutouts from A-listers 21 Savage, Cardi B, Drake and her idol Rihanna, who lip-synced to Blessed from the back seat of a cab on Instagram live. “I grew up listening to Rihanna 24/7,” she screams. “And now she’s listening to me.”
You sense that next time Shenseea is in London, she will be staying at the Ritz. But she will still be flying the flag for her country. “It’s still dancehall, it’s just evolving,” she smiles. “Because nothing is ever gonna stay the same for ever”.
In this interview from 2020, Shenseea was asked twenty-one questions about career and influences. I have selected a few that caught my eye:
“1. Shenseea, let’s talk about music and your journey as a performer and recording artist. You are improving rapidly, to what do you credit your improvements?
I travel a lot and I get to experience different audiences. Performing for me now is fun. Years ago anywhere I go I had to have dancers behind me to boost my confidence. I tell them if anything goes wrong they should take the attention (distract them). But now, it’s like majority of the time I don’t feel like I need anybody on the stage with me. Many times I tell everyone to come off the stage because I want to grab their full attention.. you get me? It’s really experience that helped to mold me and I am really proud of myself because I never once backdown. Romeich had people come in teach me to perform but performance comes with your personality and nobody can teach you that. They can teach choreography but the connection has to be natural.
2. So you did go through the A&R process?
I did and sometimes looking back and I cringe but I worked really hard in the last two years. When I first heard your voice I knew it was something special.
3. How did you develop your vocal range?
I was always an outspoken child and was told never to talk under my breath. I was always shouting. Even when I am expressing myself I was always loud so that was training my voice to be strong but the control comes from the beat. When I hear the baseline and kick in the rhythm, I know that’s definitely Dancehall and that chop manish-womanish comes out and that helped me to channel my voice. When I am onstage I say ‘ok for this next song I will tone it down a bit’, and midway I just say Yeah this is me, deal with it. It also grabs the attention of people and keeps them anticipating.
4. Do you write your music?
Yes I do. I write my music. I have over 100 songs and I wrote most of them. Doesn’t mean I won’t take a song from someone. We should be more open to songwriters but only if the song makes sense.
5. Who inspires you?
I wouldn’t say anyone specifically but growing up I listened to a lot of Christopher Martin because i’d watch Rising Stars. And Michael Jackson… I used to play Michael Jackson everyday.
6. So no other female inspire you in the industry?
Well as far as performance I watch Spice a lot and she has the stage locked. She brings the flag for the females onstage. She held her own and I respect her for that. Where lyrics are concerned I listen a lot of Vybz Kartel and challenge myself against him.
7. I take note of your freestyles. That’s not common for Jamaicans?
That’s why I picked it up. I don’t like to do what everyone else is doing.
8. I notice you are diverse…with the Hip Hop lingua as you are with the Dancehall. Which one do you prefer?
Jamaican of course. Jamaican all the way. I can’t do rap 100 percent HipHop lingua I have to add some dancehall in it.
9. You can DJ with the Hip Hop flow. With hip hop having a bigger audience and you being mixed with Black and Asian you think you will do songs for other markets like the Spanish market?
I would do a Spanish song but it has to be the right look.
10. People compare you to Stefflon Don, would you do a collab with her?
We communicate and I would. I am always up for it when it comes on to female collaborators. Not just her but it depends because I work off vibe and energy.
11. Who is your dream collaboration?
Nicki Minaj and Rihanna.
12 Where will Shenseea be in five years?
In five years I will be an international artist and in seven years I want to pursue a career in acting”.
The final interview I want to introduce is from NME. Having appeared on Kanye West's DONDA, and combined with Megan Thee Stallion on Lick, she is now in the midst of making a historical leap:
“She has good reason to be: the 25-year-old – real name Chinsea Lee – has been frontrunner in dancehall music for nearly half a decade. Whether you know her for her dancehall hits like ‘Loodi’, which features the influential producer Vybz Kartel, or perhaps her new song ‘Lick’ with rap heavyweight Megan Thee Stallion, her name continues to expand into new places. Her recently released debut album, ‘Alpha’, will only bolster that: “Most people take the word ‘alpha’ as meaning number one and I think it goes with my personality. I’m a very strong, dominant person… I’m a leader,” she tells NME.
When she featured on Kanye West’s tenth album, 2021’s ‘DONDA’, her ethereal contributions to ‘Pure Souls’ and ‘Ok Ok Part 2’ made her the first female Jamaican dancehall to appear in the Billboard Hot 100 in 17 years. Working on the record was a blessing in disguise, she says. “I did like five or six songs on ‘DONDA’ and two made the cut. I was expecting none or one, to be honest. I really blew my expectations away and Kanye has really been a gem to me. He’s treated us with respect and is a very good mentor and inspiration.”
Bringing what she learnt from all the various mentors throughout her career, ‘Alpha’ is a debut of pure musical exploration. Lee honed in on her unique mix of imaginative salacious lyrics with pop-rap sounds, like on ‘Target’ where she and frequent collaborator Tyga cruise over a subdued, rum-infused version of afroswing sounds. “Tyga is one of those people I just have such good chemistry with,” she says. “Even a mixtape or another album together, that’s the vibe I’m getting from me and Tyga”. When she’s not producing her floaty bashment tunes, you can find her trying out some R&B on ‘Deserve It’ and ‘R U That’.
Shenseea boasts that she “never had to pay for a feature on her album” because of the mutual respect between everyone on it, including 21 Savage, Tyga, and reggae legend Beenie Man and more). But ‘Alpha’ is more so about showcasing herself than making a certified hit: “It’s my first album so I don’t know what to expect, and I’m not going to be perfect at formulating the best album since it’s my first. I really just experimented on all the songs and chose the best of the ones that brought out a different side of me. All of them are my favourites, you can’t pit one against the other.”
Lee recalls wanting to be an “international pop star” from the age of five, with her aunt introducing her to the music that would later influence her to this day. “On a bad day I had no other choice but to listen,” says Shenseea, “and that’s when she’d play all the Xscape music, Usher, Whitney, Michael Jackson.” In particular, Whitney Houston inspired her to embrace her own “vocal range” and to “sing loud” and proud on the album – most noticeably on ‘Sun Comes Up’, the uplighting song of resilience closing ‘Alpha’.
From Rihanna, she takes the thick skin the Barbadian superstar has had to develop after media bashing in a decade-plus career: “She helped with my flavour, with my attitude. Watching her when I grew up, she doesn’t really respond to negativity. She doesn’t waste her time throwing stones at everybody who’s throwing stones at her. I learned that from her and now negativity never affects me because it really doesn’t”.
I will end with a review of the sublime and incredible ALPHA. This is what Dance Hall Mag observed when they reviewed one of this year’s best albums:
“In proving that she had not ditched her Dancehall dexterity, Shenseea starts her 14-track debut album on Target, riding The Stereotypes-produced beat with precision, in her unmistakeable Jamaican accent. She begins with the song’s catchy hook on the Dancehall-fusion where she calls for her collaborator Tyga, to “aim fi di taagit”, singing and deejaying a song produced for “bubblin” and TikTok dance moves. Tyga, who’s known to body his many features, embellishes the song with his rap lines, flawlessly.
Can’t Anymore, an R&B/Hip-Hop track about a salacious afterparty in the car, is a slower groove that makes for perfect club music. Produced by London On Da Track, it is a song that demonstrates that she’s capable of standing on her own and shining without features.
Can’t Anymore is followed by the previously released Deserve It (produced by Rvssian) and R U That featuring 21 Savage (produced by Dr. Luke) and the song regarded as a wasted effort by critics and fans: Lick with Megan Thee Stallion, for which, the less said about that—the better.
In the Hip-Hop/Pop-sounding Bouncy, which featured Offset and was produced by Smash David (Khalid, Tory Lanez, Chris Brown) and Western (Drake, Meek Mill, Camila Cabello), Shenseea wades into uncharted territory but scores big again with her singing voice in a whisper at times and her “gunman voice” — as she described her hardcore deejaying voice — chipping in at intervals.
For the Chimney Records/Banx & Ranx-produced Henkel Glue, which has elements of Steelie and Clevie’s Gi-Gi riddim, some might find it awkward listening to a near-50-year-old Beenie Man telling 25-year-old Shenseea lascivious things such “ p_y good like gold, mi c_ky yuh drape up”, and singing explicitly about her “tight” private parts, which feels like the adhesive, which is popular in Jamaica for gluing wood and paper. However, the two Jamaicans complement each other on the beat, in exciting Dancehall fashion, while unwittingly giving the distributors of Henkel at Red Hills Road in Kingston, a free endorsement on what might be the biggest hit of the album.
Shenseea takes on Reggae with Sean Paul in Lying If I Call It Love, which was co-produced by Miami duo Cool & Dre and Miami-based Jamaican Supa Dups. The duet flows smoothly and beautifully and seemed headed for greatness, until the singer begins to use profanity midway, diminishing the potential of the track which would have had massive wherewithal to dominate free-to-air television and radio airwaves. Hopefully, she will have a radio-friendly version, as this song is, albeit the expletives, magnificent.
In the Rvssian-produced Hangover, Shenseea comes in like a champion, low-keyed at the beginning until she takes charge of the hook, and tells her lover that while she knows her relationship was destined for destruction, she was hell-bent on enjoying the moments. Full of good melodies, inflections and well-written lyrics, the track should get heavy rotation.
In Body Count, she appears to address the well-known lust that Yankees have for her, as a “Yardie”, noting that the man, who saw her as the subject of his affections should not concern himself with her number of past lovers, but ensure that he steps up to the plate when they connect in the bedroom, or wherever.
Known for her stance on cheap, parsimonious, trifling men, Shenseea reminds the world that she is unwavering on that position on Egocentric (co-produced by Slyda Di Wizard and DJ Blackboi) where she disparages “mean men” while expressing her dislike of them, outlining that while she would not beg because “mi a nuh pauper, dat don’t mean yuh nuh fi offer”.
Similarly, on Shen Ex Anthem, produced and co-written by her first manager Romeich Major, Shenseea scolds a low-life ex, which with one of the punch lines being “why yuh dweet drankro?” should chalk up much laugher in Jamaica. The phrase gained popularity following an online rant by a Seaview Gardens woman, who cursed out the father of her seven children referring to him as Dutty Goola while asking “why yuh dweet drankro”. Drankro (John Crow) is the Jamaican name for a vulture, but is commonly used to describe those deemed “good-for-nothing”.
Her six-year-old son Rajerio Lee has songwriting credits on the Rvssian-produced Sun Comes Up, an inspirational, upbeat song about perseverance and hope, again, masterfully delivered by the 25-year-old. In an endearing mother-son moment, an audio clip of him giving her directives as to the manner in which she should deliver her lyrics, for the song, serves as the outro.
“You’re welcome,” a delighted Rajerio responds politely after Shenseea thanks him and tells him that he “is a producer”.
Blessed, her 2019 collab with Tyga, completes the set.
Alpha is a brilliant album. And it is brilliant not because of the features with older or more established artists. It is brilliant because Shenseea stamps her authority as a singer and a deejay, with her rich Jamaican accent, which was not ditched as most people feared she would have done based on the content of the pre-released tracks.
She does not sound like “everybody else.”
She is distinctly Shenseea and even with the direction she has taken her sound. Those connoisseurs of Dancehall, with misgivings after Lick, should be well-satisfied with Alpha”.
An artist who keeps growing, and who is bringing Jamaican Dancehall nearer to the mainstream, the remarkable Shenseea is an artist that everyone needs to look out for and keep an eye on. Having been in the business for a while, I think that her best days are still ahead. If you have not discovered her music, then make sure you…
CHECK her out now.
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