Shenseea doesn’t want to be placed inside a box.
The “Blessed” deejay has responded to her critics who are suggesting that she is selling out dancehall following the release of her new single with rapper Tyga. Shenseea recently sat down for an interview with Nadeska Alexis on her Apple Music show where she spoke about working with Tyga and being mentored by Rvssian. Some fans attacked her for speaking proper English and not the broken Jamaican dialect patois. “Keep the patois, it’s you! We love it but i get it tho,” the fan wrote.
Shenseea quickly clapped back, saying that she will not limit herself because her aim is the broader global music market.
“No sis, patois is not me…. patois is A PART of me,” the singer wrote. “I’m not doing music for Jamaicans alone! Wouldn’t it be extremely hard for people who are not from the Caribbean to understand me? Y’all need to stop acting like it’s a crime when JAMAICANS speak standard English, we need to let the world know patios is not the only language we speak!.”
Since the beginning of her career, Shenseea made it clear that her aim is to be much more than a dancehall artist. Besides, there aren’t enough fans in Jamaica for dancehall artists to make a reasonable income off their craft. Artists have to always look overseas for touring and selling music.
Over the past decades, we’ve seen artists like Sean Paul and Shaggy tailored their brand of dancehall to fit the global market so that worldwide fans can better understand the lyrics. Despite criticisms from dancehall fans, the move worked for them, and currently Sean Paul and Shaggy are two of the most commercially successful artists in dancehall’s history.
Shenseea is making the right move by taking risks and tailored her music for the global market because Jamaica and the Caribbean are just not big enough to reach the levels of a Rihanna and Nicki Minaj.
