Shenseea shares what dancehall means to her as she prepares for the next phase of her blossoming career.
Shenseea has been making her mark on the hip hop industry, and despite deciding to start at the bottom as she builds a new path in the hip hop industry, she is still a force to be reckoned with in dancehall.
Shenseea is the latest face for Honda and Billboard’s Honda stage, which features artists with powerful and inspirational come-up stories. While reflecting on her journey as an artist, Shenseea spoke about growing up poor but using dancehall to not only leverage opportunities to better her life but also as a form of self-expression.
In a mini-video shared on Wednesday (July 13), Shenseea talks about her love for dancehall and what it means to her.
“Dancehall to me means you can be raunchy, you can be free, you can be yourself without being judged and we try to spread it across the world. Everywhere we go people enjoy it because of the energy,” she said.
Indeed, Shenseea has always spoken about the platform dancehall has given her as she shifted from doing strictly dancehall music for the past five years to now pursuing a hip-hop career.
“Music was definitely my first choice. There wasn’t a day that could pass and I don’t open my mouth and sing. Music was all I ever wanted,” she said as she reflected on how she started to write music in the eighth grade at just 13 years old.
“I couldn’t get past three lines,” she says as she revealed that she eventually switched to singing covers of other artists and inadvertently began honing her delivery and voice.
She also spoke about the impact of becoming a mother at 19 and how that transformed her drive to go after of goals.
“Until I gave birth to my son, it’s like the switch just went on,” she says as she flicks her finger.
“It was always my dream since I was a kid I’ve always seen myself as an international artist… but my family however they tried to drive me into different careers,” she said.
Honda Stage previously featured reggae artist Koffee’s journey to stardom. Winning her first Grammy award at just 19 years old, Koffee was featured as she spoke about her dreams and goals. Her interview was filmed in her home, and other mini-videos were made in Spanish Town, where she grew up.
