Lil Hanky Panky Goes Viral With Homeless Man ‘Stamma’
Pop-dancehall recording artist Lil Hanky Panky is ecstatic that a clip of a video shoot with an unscripted cameo by a homeless man dubbed ‘Stamma’ has gone viral in only a few days.
The clip, which was shot on Water Lane in downtown Kingston, features the well-known homeless man extemporaneously making up his own lyrics as he attempts to duet with the European bombshell.
“Stamma was there before we started shooting, we started setting up, he left and then he came back while we were shooting. He was there vibing and then he started making up his own rhymes to my song, but I was trying to focus on what I was doing, but I was literally dying inside laughing,” the artist whose real name is Lilie Gorchkov, told DancehallMag.
She was doing a video shoot for her latest single, Sativa, which will be available through the After 13 Productions label on all major digital download platforms on June 17th. The song was produced by platinum-selling record producer Teetimus who produced So A Child May Follow on Damian Marley’s Grammy-winning Stony Hill album.
The video will be released on all digital platforms next week. Lilie is amazed at the ebullient reaction of dancehall fans who are hailing ‘Stamma’ as the next incarnation of Gully Bop. The public interest has been so overwhelming that Lilie and her manager, Marlon Hutchinson are now seeking out ‘Stamma’ to do a remix video of the song.
“We went downtown to find him yesterday. His name is Stammer, we want to do a remix with him on the Sativa song, people want to see something now, so we’re thinking about it. That’s the powerful unexpected thing with music, the people you expect the least from have a gift of some sort…music is somehow in everybody, you don’t know the moment when things are going to change for you,” she said.
After she posted the video last week, with the caption #mysecretfeature, the video inexplicably blew up. Now, she had been fielding a lot of requests for interviews.
“To be really honest, it was a funny moment, never thought it would blow up like that. Everyone at the gym, people are sending me the video from Germany, I didn’t expect it to go viral. Its the first time I have seen a video go viral like that, just a chain reaction,” she said.
A Russian-Georgian with a German passport, she came to Jamaica to study dancehall music two years ago and through a series of extraordinary events, is now recording music in Jamaica.
Lilie grew up in Hannover, Germany where she attended Hochschule für Musik Theater und Medien (College for Musical Studies, Theater and Media) in Hannover. She developed an early love for dancing and by the time, she was an adult, she became a professional dancer.
“I’ve been dancing since I could walk, I started with ballet but since then I have danced my way through a lot of dance styles : hip hop , pole dancing, cheerleading, contemporary, heels dance, and of course, dancehall. When I was 16, I got into fitness and made a living off dancing and fitness, doing shows for artistes, video shoots and teaching. I also learned guitar and bass, and drums and started music in Germany,” she explained.
Lilie came to Jamaica in 2018 to immerse herself in dancehall culture and take a couple of dancehall classes, and voila!, she fell in love with the island.
“I fell in love with the island… the food, vibes, the weather, a lot of different things and I looked for a way to move here(to Jamaica). I established myself here by doing video shoots for artistes and teaching hip hop and heel dance classes, and I met a lot of great people and got back into music and here I am,” she said.
The transition from the cosmopolitan German music scene with a smorgasbord of genres like rock, pop, dance, hip hop, and German “Schlager” dominate the airwaves to the flair, raw improvisation and organised chaos of the “all is dancehall” space was not easy at first.
“When I first got into the dancehall scene. I felt all eyes were on me, I felt like I was a stranger, but I realized that as long as you approach them nicely, they are very open, and interested and open minded, then I realized how versatile Jamaica is and how many different sides it has,” she said.
She is gung ho about the opportunity to work with local beatmakers and artists to blend her Eurocentric pop stylings to dancehall and world music, and craft an authentic new sound.
“In Germany, in music school, I had recorded songs but I never got to record my own songs. But here in Jamaica, I met the right people, showed them my songs and they were like ‘just do it, let’s go!”. I love Caribbean music and dancehall, the music I am doing is pop-oriented because of my influence frm Europe. But I am very excited and curious about what the future brings,” she said.
Lilie is managed by Marlon Hutchinson of After 13 Music. She is working on a number of other pop-oriented singles which will be released later this year.