Nicki Minaj seem to be eyeing another dancehall remix after flexing her DJ muscles with a rendition of Skeng’s “Gvnman Shift” on her Instagram last night.
The Hip Hop Queen who has always been hip to Jamaican culture posted a video of her singing the trap dancehall joint with the caption “Gvnman- dat sweet me 🍬”
The Chemist Records and Raheef Music Group produced song spent several weeks at number 1 in Jamaica after it’s released last August.
Minaj has a rich history of taking Jamaican dancehall hits and giving them new life in the Billboard charts. Her last bout was with Skillibeng’s Crocodile Teeth.
She surprised fans with a remix of the street anthem on the re-release of her Beam Me Up Scotty Mixtape. The remix surpassed 2M YouTube views within a few days and placed Skillibeng in context with her loyal Barbs.
The added verse blessed Skillibeng with his first Billboard Hot 100 debut. He also made Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart at No. 35 as a top-performing rising acts in the US.
The remix also entered the Billboard Global 200 chart at No. 182, and the Digital Song Sales chart at No. 43.
With a slew of other dancehall hits under her belt, the Jamaica, Queens New York native seems to have the formula to make dancehall hot.
The Young Money artist’s fondness for trap dancehall artists, and her willingness to collaborate with them might be the validation they all need. The contemporary dancehall sound and artists have been criticized by older artists in recent times as “mashing up dancehall”.
Minaj multiple collaborator Beenie Man has accused selectors of playing too much “chap dancehall”
“Yuh have Chap Hip Hop; you have Chap Pop. Suh everybaddy just put Chap inna it… oonu chap up Dancehall. Don’t blame we; blame yuhself. A wha happen to oonu man? Wi meck good Dancehall song gi oonu and oonu don’t play it!” Beenie had declared on a microphone, whilst standing in the middle of the Boom Sunday’s audience.
Quite the contrast with Minaj who mentioned via Twitter that she likes new school dancehall artist Intence.
She said the Yahoo Boyz singer slid in her DMs and requested a feature sometime ago.
“He (Intence) was like yo ‘we gotta do sumn we gotta work together’ and I was like ‘yea for real’,” Nicki said during – Twitter Spaces dubbed “Barbie Talk,” last September.
“I was listening to some of his (Intence) stuff and I was like yea I really f**k with him and then I looked at some of his interviews,” the Pink Print rapper said.
“I always do that, cause if I like an artist, I wanna see what they are like, in their interviews sometimes…and I’ll look and you will [be] surprised at some songs out here, but then I’ll go and see a little more of an artist and i’m like ‘nah’..I don’t wanna follow them, mi nah know,” she continued.
Skeng is currently in the UK on tour . His latest song Talibhan featuring Stalk Ashley is the number 1 song in Jamaica this week.
Peep a snippet of his UK performance below:
