Sean Paul Says He Had A “Talk” With Shenseea
Dancehall superstar Sean Paul says he is not in favor of some of the lyrical content in some of Shenseea’s songs, which go against the grain of Jamaican music culture, and has had a dialogue with her on the matter.
Speaking with veteran entertainment journalist Anthony Miller on Television Jamaica’s The Entertainment Report, the Dynamite artist said that he loves the Sure Sure singer and supports her, but has some misgivings about her utterances in her songs.
“I applaud what Shen is doing, I don’t think she is changing the sound. She has hardcore Dancehall hits. She has hardcore Dancehall songs as well. I just don’t like di way shi seh weh shi seh! An me an har wi talk bout dat!” Paul declared to Miller during the interview, which took place at Shenseea’s Alpha album launch.
Paul and Shenseea, who previously collaborated on Rolling in 2017, teamed up again for Lying If I Call It Love, which appeared on Alpha. The two singers also have a third upcoming collaboration with Gwen Stefani on a song titled Light My Fire for Paul’s Sorcha album, which is set for release later this year.
When asked by Miller whether artists “have to retain that authentic Jamaicaness even when you are trying to break internationally”, the Temperature artist concurred that it was a “fine line to walk”.
“Is a fine line. That’s what I would say. There was a lot a times artists ask me to say things in songs or do things in videos and I was like: ‘mi naw do dat!’” he declared. “And as I explain to dem, because a my people dem, we don’t play dat way. So I aint goin dat way.”
In January this year, Shenseea had released the song and video for the single Lick featuring Megan Thee Stallion, and had declared a day prior to the track’s release that it was a “suck pu–y song”.
The song and the accompanying video had earned the wrath of many Jamaicans across the island, among them former Speaker of the House Lloyd B Smith, Irie FM’s DJ Amber, Reggae artist Queen Ifrica, and Dancehall selector/producer Foota Hype.
In an Instagram monologue, Hype had rebuked Shenseea, describing Lick as a ‘dirty, nasty, demonic song’. He also asserted that she was copycatting foreign artists instead of pushing Dancehall, and that he would not allow her to tear down Jamaica’s ‘moral values’. Foota had declared that Shenseea was, among other things, “a disgrace to Dancehall” for her lyrics, spreadeagled posture, and Sapphic shenanigans with Megan Thee Stallion in the video, and said the message Shenseea was sending was, that she is a lesbian.
For her part, Queen Ifrica had deemed the release of the video a sad, embarrassing day. Ifrica had said that as a mother she would hate for her own child to be performing oral sex on women and advised the Mona High School old girl to re-examine the content of her music. “I don’t want my son bowing on nuh gal. Our boys and girls are worth more than that. Come better than that big woman,” the Yad to The East artiste had stated.
Contending that many Dancehall artists “have sold their souls to slackness”, Lloyd B Smith had decried Lick, following the emergence of a widely circulated video of two very young girls singing and simulating the actions which Megan and Shenseea were carrying out on each other. Smith had described the actions of the two children as a “not-so-gentle reminder of the increasing decadence now plaguing Dancehall”.
A day after her album launch, Shenseea was featured in an interview on Angela Yee’s Lip Service show, saying that she had tried anal sex once, and was interested in it, an announcement which has become subject material for numerous YouTube videos, where she is being mocked by scornful Jamaicans, as the act remains both taboo and illegal in the country.