If You Want A Proper Fix, You Can Finally Call Beenie Man!
The Dude singer has finally gotten himself a smartphone.
Dancehall veteran Beenie Man got the device after 12 years of being accessible only through his manager and brother Rohan ‘Blue’ Smith and his home’s landline.
The news first came via an impromptu “public service announcement” from the Unruly Boss Popcaan during a video shoot for the song Fun In The Sun, which will appear on Beenie’s upcoming Simma album.
“Uncle Moses have phone now ya here,” Popcaan said in an IG Story video on February 17, with Beenie and his daughter Desha Ravers.
The celebration continued when Quada and Dre Island joined in for a song giving “cheers to the phone” in acapella.
Requests by fans to see the phone, prompted the Girls Dem Sugar deejay to ask in another IG Story, “Everybody waan see I phone. Is ‘iPhone’, not fi unno phone. Why unno waan see I phone?”
But The Doctor is already putting the smartphone’s camera to good use, according to a conversation with Ravers.
“Mi daughter deh yah a war bout one picture weh she see pon mi phone zeen, cause mi newly buy a phone zeen, bout yesterday zeen,” Beenie said. “Weh yuh nuh war bout after the fact cause we call her and tell her the picture a tek and yuh supposed to deh deh. You know when she reach? When the picture done tek.”
However, it hasn’t been smooth sailing.
Beenie experienced his first dead battery while on an Instagram Live yesterday with dancehall artist I Waata about their upcoming collaboration.
When he reconnected to the Live, Beenie explained that he was still learning the ropes around phone life. “Mi nuh really hang up, hear di problem. Is true mi just get phone fi twelve years, mi don’t know how di battery ting go so the phone dead,” he said.
The dead battery experience appeared to have reminded Beenie Man of his preference for in-person interactions. He ended the Live and joined I Waata at the popular Frenz For Real Studio in St Andrew instead. “Hear mi a go do, mi a go hang up and reach, too much talking nuh mek nuh sense… I-Waata mi deh pon mi way… When mi forward we need fi record di song.”
The I Waata collaboration might not make Beenie’s upcoming album, as the deejay revealed earlier this week that the LP was complete and awaiting a release date from VP Records.
“Di album nice man, because the single with me an Popcaan and Dre Island – wi have Busy signal on the album; wi have HoodCelebrityy on the album, wi have Sean Paul, Anthony Red Rose, wi have Shaggy. Di album bad man. Wi have even Bounty Killer all inna di album, trust mi,” Beenie said of the album which is also expected to feature Dexta Daps and Major Lazer.
“Dude” was the lead single from Beenie’s Back to Basics album, featuring guest vocals from Ms. Thing. The Dave Kelly-produced hit peaked at No. 12 on the US Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart in 2004.