Spice Earns Her First Certification In The UK With ‘So Mi Like It’
Queen of Dancehall Spice has earned her first Silver certification in the United Kingdom with her 2014 track So Mi Like It.
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) awarded the track its Brit Certified Silver Award on Friday, recognizing over 200,000 units sold in the United Kingdom.
This latest accolade follows a Gold certification in Canada last month, where the song surpassed 40,000 units sold. The provocative single, which has become Spice’s signature anthem, was recorded on the pulsating Boom Box riddim produced by NotNice. The riddim featured other notable tracks like Alkaline’s Gyal Bruk Out and Beenie Man’s What Is This.
So Mi Like It first appeared on Spice’s eponymous debut EP in 2014 and later found a place on her 2021 studio album, 10. The artist’s decision to include the track on her full-length debut was deliberate.
“I was asked to pick one song from the past 10 years to go on the album. It was a hard decision, but ‘So Mi Like It’ just hit different,” she previously told DancehallMag. “You have to wine when you hear it. You have to just enjoy yourself. It gives you that burst of energy.”
The song’s music video, released in January 2014, has amassed over 124 million YouTube views. It features Spice and her dancers performing some of their most acrobatic stunts over the booming riddim, which still gets fans hyped up from the record-scratch intro. Since then, Spice has truly become the successful siren she plays in the video, with an ongoing reality TV stint, hair, make-up, and clothing lines, a Grammy Award nomination, and an unbroken string of hit singles to this day.
Ironically, this career-defining hit emerged from a period of financial struggle for the artist. In a candid 2020 Instagram post, Spice revealed that she was “broke AF” when she wrote the song.
“Home with my kids and told myself if this song don’t buss big I’m done with music. I drove to every party to get this track played myself,” Spice had revealed. “I burned CDs with the little money I got and drove around to give them out. I promoted this with all I got. Big up EVERY SELECTOR. Too much to tag. I took to the streets and never looked back. God is always right on time.”
Despite initial reservations about some of the song’s more explicit lyrics, Spice ultimately embraced them, crediting that boldness for her subsequent success.
“I wanted to take out “Skin out mi p— p—line so bad. I was shamed and embarrassed when I said it at first 😂😂😂 But that f%*king line made me rich so I will be skinning out my p— p— right through bye,” she said.
Earlier this month, Spice released her third album, Mirror 25, a follow-up to Emancipated (2022) and a celebration of her 25 years in the dancehall music industry.