Shenseea is eyeing her first reggae Grammy following the release of her sophomore album, Never Late Gets Here.
The project, which debut at the top of the iTunes chart on Friday, has been met with a warm reception from her fans. The 14-track body of work saw guest appearances from Masicka, Anitta, Wizkid, Coi Leray, and Stephen ‘Di Genius’ McGregor, who produced her first hit song this year, “Hit & Run.” The single has been putting up numbers since its release in January, with over 50 million views on YouTube for the visual.
In her new interview with Winford Williams on OnStage, Shenseea shared that she is looking to win a Grammy nomination for the album at the upcoming award ceremony. Grammy nominations will be announced sometime in the fall of this year.
“Yes I was making an album,” she said for the past two years. “Because what I always said to myself growing up. Something that I really wanted to achieve a goal of mine I have to win a reggae Grammy first. I need to win a reg Grammy for [me]. That’s the one I prefer to get first and that is why you’ve never seen me at the Grammys. I’ve been nominated for album of the year with Kanye, we’ve been nominated on Masago’s project I’ve never went. I need people to recognize these things I’m waiting for our time. When I step out there it’s because I’m nominated for reggae album you know I’ve been working on my project and it’s mostly reggae and dancehall on my project.”
Shenseea says her plan now is to forge ahead with her plans for her merch line, cookbook, and some acting. “Let me try frame everything nice now inno,” she said. “We, me and my Jamaican people, we’ll be going to arenas, stadiums, we’re going to the Grammys. I want to release a cookbook… and you know I have my merch line coming up as well so I need to go heavy in fashion and movies for sure.”
Shenseea says she is putting all her Jamaican fans on her back going forward. In the interview, she also addressed the issue that has been plaguing her for the past few years, her statement about branching out from dancehall to go more international.
“What I can say is whatever I said I think that the haters you know took it and run with it to twist it in a certain type of way as oppose to make it seem like I was leaving dancehall which I’ve never said that out of my mouth ever that you’re leaving,” she said.
“To say that I’m leaving dancehall and stop doing dancehall it’s impossible,” Shenseea added. “Now I would say I’m branching out you know I’m doing different things, but I can never say I’m leaving the genre that made me who I am today. You know and I think that people kind of put it in a way where it’s like I used dancehall as like a stepping stone because that’s what I’ve been seeing and I would say that it’s so impossible for me to do so.”
“If I didn’t have real love for the genre I couldn’t do it that well for so many years I love dancehall I grew up on dancehall throughout my whole entire high school years that’s why I was listening to 24/7,” she said. “But I think they tried to avoid the part where I said that I listen to pop you know, growing up, a lot of hip hop, but mostly R&B and pop growing up in my younger years. Because as we know, dancehall is so raunchy right, and I grew up in a Christian home, so it wasn’t like dancehall was blasting in my ears 24/7 growing up as a child. But when I moved to high school and I started taking Transportation on my own, that was really when I got exposed to dancehall. That’s when I tap into the Rvssan the Mavado The Vybz Kartel the Lady Saw and being the fact that it’s my home genre that’s what my people told me to start out with.”
Shenseea has assured her fans on numerous occasions that she is not leaving dancehall, nor did she say that she was leaving the genre. However, in 2022, she told her fans that she had bigger dreams than to be the Queen of Dancehall.
