Stacious Says “Politics” Stopped Mavado Collab From Reaching Billboard

Dancehall songstress Stacious shares a common goal among many of her peers, which is to score a Billboard chart-topping record. Interestingly, she said she almost tasted Billboard success a decade ago with her most known single.

“I almost got the Billboard song with Come Into My Room with Mavado but because of some copyright issues we were pulled,” she said during a recent interview on Next Frideh. “A nuff people nuh understand the politics behind that song but that song was going places so I’m still grieving over that.”

The track was produced by Stephen ‘Di Genius’ McGregor in an era where his record label was responsible for several hits that dominated dancehall. Come Into My Room distinguished itself as a slow whine seducer, balancing the high-tempo tracks that canvassed the daggering craze at the time.

Stacious has not forsaken her Billboard aspirations, and added that she hopes to “get another chance to get there.” Her latest offering is Arch and Jook, the music video for which she plans to release soon.

Entrepreneurial life

Though she’s been in the game since 2004, Stacious has since ventured beyond music to pursue other interests. She opened a juice bar in 2006 which operates as ‘Scrumptious Juices’ on Red Hills Road in Kingston. At a time when artistes are scraping for other income opportunities because of COVID-19, Stacious was ahead of the game by expanding her revenue streams. She also has a sports bar on the same complex.

Throughout the years she has also taken on a life of fitness and has been volunteering at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) as a certified personal trainer over the last two years.

“I get a lot of messages, ‘yow, when we a get something new?’, ‘why are you so quiet?’, and sometimes it hurts,” she said. “I’m not quiet but I just wanna do a lot of things that I enjoy that’s not necessarily centred around music. I’m at KPH volunteering in the physiotherapy department and when I’m actually working on ward and hands-on with patients they’re like, ‘really, you?’, but I’m like, ‘it’s not for the money’…

“It’s so gratifying to be helping people and sometimes the nurses, the doctors, the other physiotherapists are so overwhelmed and the time that they would definitely want to sit and talk with a patient they can’t devote. And sometimes dem (patients) just waan tell yuh dem story; how di injury happen or who did trouble dem, and weh dem a go do when dem come out. Fi dat likkle 10 minutes weh mi can sit down and seh, ‘yeah, for real’, it makes a difference.”