Koffee says dancehall need more positive music.
Koffee opened up to Ssense about her music journey and dancehall music needing more positivity. Grammy-winning reggae artist Koffee has had a whirlwind career year with chart-topping hits, and some pretty cool celebrity nods. The reggae songstress recently sat down for an interview with Canadian company Ssense and spoke about her views on dancehall and reggae music. Koffee says the reception to her music has been extraordinarily awesome, and that’s thanks to her uplifting content.
Though her breakout hit “Toast” is still the biggest record of her career s far with over 100 million views on YouTube, Koffee says that for her, it was the record that she wasn’t sure about. “I had the least confidence in it out of all the songs on my EP,” Koffee said about the hit single. “I started out doing reggae, reggae, reggae music. My first single was ‘Burning,’ which was almost like a roots reggae kind of track. I remember expressing to my peoples that, ‘This is a nice song for me, but I want to hold the Caribbean and Jamaicans who take it,” because sometimes they will say that you crossover and then you sell out, and you start off on this and then you jump on the next wave, you know?”
The “Toast” singer who is a favorite of Barack and Michelle Obama went on to discuss the nature of dancehall music and the positive enlightenment that the genre could use. According to Koffee, “there’s a lot more room for positivity in dancehall music.” When asked about it her response was well said.
“If dancehall says ‘buss gun,’ me nah gon necessarily buss a gun, but you have younger people who are more impressionable who really idolize this kind of music,” the reggae star explained. “I think the world would be a boring place if it was all about positivity, to be honest. Like me nah gon say it shouldn’t be. I try to be realistic. I think you have to have a good mix and different kinds of entertainment that different kinds of people can gravitate towards, because there’s different people in the world,” she continued. “I think what is good is a balance where it can put a bit more positivity in it. So, not to exclude what you’re used to or what you enjoy putting in your music, but just drop a couple of positive tunes more time and try to unite the people.”
Koffee has been extremely successful in her craft thus far. Do you think dancehall artists ought to take her advice?
