Shenseea says she watched the Bob Marley: One Love biopic twice. The film, which chronicles Bob Marley’s rise to fame in the 1970s and the challenges he faced, resonates with her as it reminded her of her own struggles in the music industry.
The dancehall artist is currently doing the press run for her sophomore album, Never Gets Late Here, released on Friday. The project debut at No. 1 on the iTunes Reggae Chart, with fans giving it rave reviews. The album saw Shenseea return to her dancehall roots with a mixture of rap, R&B, and Afrobeats.
Shenseea faced a wave of criticism leading up to the release of the album, as some of her core fans expressed disapproval of the music she had been releasing since her debut album, Alpha, in 2022. Many of her Jamaican and Caribbean fans felt that the music during that period had strayed too far from her dancehall roots, leaning more towards pop and hip hop. However, Shenseea was unyielding in her determination to branch out internationally and win over new fans, but that came at the expense of angering her core fan base.
Nevertheless, Shenseea returned to her core this year, producing music that resonated with her fans. She likened some of her struggles in music to Bob Marley, who also went through a period of criticism for his music. Speaking with Ebro Darden and Laury Stylez on Hot 97 radio, she shared that One Love resonates with her.
“I watched Bob Marley movie twice because it reminds me of myself so much,” she said. “That’s why am saying I can’t take it too personal because I am not the first and I will not be the last to go through it. You have to go through it.”
Ebro went on to rationalize the issue as a “dysfunctional way to say that I miss you, I love you, and I don’t want to lose you because you mean a lot.” He says people don’t know how to say it that way, so it comes off as “you sold out.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Shenseea says she felt like her fans were trying to hold her back from going international, but she later realized that they just weren’t
“All the talking that they were doing, I feel like it was more of trying to hold me back,” she said. “But you know, when I sat and I just look at everything that was going on in the past couple months. I was like, Okay, now I can see what was taking place at the time. We just do great music and fix it.”
Shenseea also reveals that she is planning a major North American tour for the fall of this year.
