Shenseea Among 2023 NAACP Image Awards Nominees

Jamaican singer Shenseea is among this year’s nominees at the 54th NAACP Image Awards.

Diana, a collaboration between Nigerian singer Fireboy DML, American singer Chris Brown and Shenseea, is nominated for Outstanding International Song.

The other nominated songs in the category are Tems’ soulful rendition of Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry, Wizkid’s Bad to Me, Burna Boy’s Last Last, and Davido and Sunday Service Choir’s Stand Strong.

Koffee‘s summer hit Lockdown had won the award for Outstanding International Song in 2021, while Skip Marley was nominated for Best New Artist that year.

Diana, produced by Phantom and released on August 5, comes as a single from Fireboy DML’s 2022 album, Playboy.  It’s a collaboration that saw Chris Brown continuing his rather successful experiments with Afrobeat. With Shenseea added to that mix, the track ensured a lively fusion of Dancehall, Hip Hop, R&B and, of course, Afrobeat, worthy of its current nomination.

Fireboy and Chris Brown express their love for a hypothetical person, likely named Diana, and try to resolve the trust issues the shared love interest has caused. The song’s lyrics offer a glimpse into the struggling emotions of Fireboy and Chris, while Shenseea, who responds as the character Diana, adds a female perspective by communicating what she needs for a successful relationship. She tells them:

“Hard fi you get a gyal like a me (Shenseea)
This yah pum-pum high quality (Mhm)
UFO, me no ordinary
And that’s why you want fi have me from sun up…”

The song caps off with an impassioned plea from Chris Brown, begging Diana not to leave.

Voting is open to the public via the Image Awards website, and the awards ceremony will be broadcast on February 25 on BET.

The NAACP Image Awards is an annual event presented by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) to recognize exceptional performances in various forms of media, including film, television, theatre, music, and literature. Similar to other awards such as the Oscars and the Grammys, the Image Awards has over 40 categories that are voted on by members of the NAACP.

Shenseea, whose career started in 2016 with Jiggle Jiggle and exploded with Loodi, has come a long way since. The 26-year-old’s extensive portfolio has seen her working with some big names like Shaggy, Sean Paul and Megan Thee Stallion, and stands as an impressive roadmap of the Blessed singer’s slow but deliberate transition to Pop, all while keeping her finger on the pulse of Dancehall.

Over the last two years, she’s racked up a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year and her first entries on the Billboard Hot 100 by way of Kanye West’s DONDA, a nomination at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, and a historic MOBO Award as the first woman to win for Best Reggae Act.