Spice, Shaggy & Sean Paul’s ‘Go Down Deh’ Hits 100 Million On YouTube
Queen of Dancehall Spice continues to hit new milestones with her debut album 10 and its bass-driven lead single Go Down Deh. The music video for the song—which featured Dancehall superstars Shaggy and Sean Paul—soared past 100 million views on YouTube earlier this month.
VP Records, which released the 10 album, noted the milestone on July 13.
Directed by Jay Will and released on May 1, 2021, the video had brought the Queen back to YouTube record-breaking turf following the viral campaign of 2018’s Black Hypocrisy (1M Youtube views in 24hrs).
Go Down Deh later became wildly popular in India, where it peaked at No. 3 on that country’s iTunes Top Songs charts. According to YouTube’s Music Charts, Spice’s catalog has received over 36 million views from India over the last 12 months.
At No. 2 was the United States at almost 22 million views, followed by Jamaica at 14.7 million views, Turkey at 10.4 million views, and Thailand at 9.8 million views, all recorded over the last year. Spice’s top cities on the video-sharing platform are Kingston, Bangkok, New York, Nairobi, Dhaka, and London.
Go Down Deh was produced by Romanian Constantin “Costi” Ioniță, who had also produced Shaggy’s Billboard Hot 100 hit I Need Your Love.
“(Shaggy) brought me into the Ranch Studio in New York, and there I met Spice. And I played some beats and then we started to flow and play and that’s it. They liked the vibe and energy and here it is “guh dung deh”,” Costi had told DancehallMag last year.
“This song has opened so many doors for me and I’m super grateful to know that I have two legends on this collaboration with me,” Spice also told DancehallMag last August. “I’ve been hashtagging #TeamJamaica and #TeamDancehall because we came together in unison to represent Jamaica and Dancehall culture, So big up Sean Paul and big up to Shaggy.”
In December 2021, former President of the United States Barack Obama included the song on his annual list of favorite songs.
DancehallMag ranked Go Down Deh at No. 3 on its list of Best Dancehall Songs Of 2021, while NPR called the song “the dancehall track of the year (2021),” adding that the Spice has “generated deserved buzz earlier this year for releasing the first official album of her 18-year career.”
Spice’s 10 album was nominated for Best Reggae Album at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards.
Besides Go Down Deh, Spice’s next best performing song on YouTube is So Mi Like It, which added 13 million views over the last year, for a total of 108 million views.
Conjugal Visit with Vybz Kartel recorded 12 million views over the last year, followed by Tables Turn with an additional 11 million, Back Way with Kartel with 6.6 million, and Send It Up with 5 million views.