It's Jada's kingdom - Industry players praise artiste self-confidence after social meda posts

With Spice sitting firmly atop dancehall’s hierarchical structure as queen, the ranking order for female artistes has not seen much change in recent times.

In fact, aside from Shenseea, who has been hailed as the genre’s princess, there are few females who have managed to ‘shake things up’ on the local music scene.

But that may change in 2020 as Jada Kingdom puts herself out there as one of Jamaica’s ‘baddest female recording artistes’.

In a series of tweets on the weekend, the Execution singer sent tongues wagging when she referred to herself as the ‘youngest and the baddest’, indicating that when she fully masters the stage, “everything dead.”

Her sentiments didn’t go over well with some on social media, who felt the entertainer was delving into a realm of dancehall royalty she hadn’t quite reached.

So heated were the discussions, that Kingdom had to send out another tweet pointing out that while self-praise is no recommendation, she has to believe in her craft or no one else will.

A number of industry players are siding with her, pointing out that with the dancehall industry being highly competitive, one has to possess a huge amount of self-confidence to make it to the top.

“Inna dancehall yuh affi have da ego deh, da confidence deh, and it nuh just go fi di man dem. Di female dem affi have da level a confidence deh too. And yuh affi remember say her arch-nemesis a vie fi a top spot inna dancehall too, so she affi go off di spotlight too and represent. She can’t gwaan like she coward, worse she have the buzz around her now,” said Tripple X. “And if yuh listen weh she say carefully, she never call nobody name and make no comparison. She never say she better dan Spice or anything like dat because a deh so she woulda need a bath wid some cerasse water and likkle dog blood. I don’t see nothing wrong wid weh she say, she just affi live up to her words right now.”

‘Lead di rat dem’

Popular selector Foota Hype agreed, suggesting that she has the mindset needed to have to dominate the space.

“Yuh affi have the mindset say yuh a the best … say yuh a di greatest and the most dominant. Living up to that argument will be the challenge. Your actions and yuh delivery as an artiste and the results are what will make what you say, garbage or reality,” he said. “Inna music business, yuh affi be the pied piper, yuh can’t make the rat dem lead you, yuh affi lead di rat dem.”

Kingdom’s manager, Julian Jones-Griffith of Pop Style Music, said he supports his artiste’s confidence in her abilities 100 per cent.

He expressed that while it is important to remain humble in the music industry, it is also important to celebrate your work.

“It’s common knowledge that the bar is higher for female, artistes to break in the industry, so nothing is wrong with a healthy dose of self-confidence. It is not to disrespect any other female artiste whatsoever, because the industry is awash with female talent. She’s just celebrating her greatness as she grows,” he said.