Lil Tjay Samples Dancehall Artist Aidonia On New Album
Dancehall aritst Aidonia is a happy genna after his music was sampled by American rapper Lil Tjay for his album Destined 2 Win. Aidonia also celebrates his 40th birthday today.
The 19-year-old’s sophomore album was released last Friday, April 1 by Columbia Records, and the track What You Wanna Do, samples Aidonia’s 2016 song Better. His debut album was True 2 Myself, released in 2019.
“It’s a great feeling to see that my music is crossing over into other markets and making an impact with the youth,” Aidonia told the Observer. “[It] just shows you that even though we live in Jamaica the music doesn’t stop here so. That’s why I always try to put out quality over quantity. This is a good look and big up Lil Tjay for that.”
Destined 2 Win is on pace to sell around 70,000 copies in its first week, according to HipHop-N-More.com, putting Lil Tjay in the running for his first Billboard Hot 200 No. 1 debut. Justice by Justin Bieber and the current No. 1 SoulFly by Rod Wave are also contenders for the spot this week. What You Wanna Do appears as track 16 on the 21 song LP.
Aidonia explained that his management handled the transaction and made the track available for Lil Tjay’s team.
“They never linked me directly, it came through my management team and they work out the business. But when they told me it really felt good to know that people internationally are recognizing the talent more,” Aidonia added.
Aidonia along with Onton Mitchell and Dekembe Perry received writing credits for the track which was produced by Ancient Records and featured on the Moonlight Riddim. Mitchell and Perry are co-producers as well.
The Bruk It singer first began churning out the hits in the 2000s and soon became one of the major players in the Dancehall genre. Over the last few years, he’s become very selective about when he drops music.
In an Instagram post today, the reclusive deejay celebrated his birthday with a new photo and wrote in the caption, “Give thanks fi life!”
Meanwhile, Lil Tjay was in Jamaica back in February and was spotted with Dancehall songstress Shenseea in the studio. The rapper, whose real name is Tione Jayden Merritt, has a Jamaican connection as both his parents hail from the island.
He immediately caused a social media buzz when he landed with private helicopter transport to his villa overlooking the sea. Shenseea confirmed that they were working on music and captioned a picture of the two on Instagram: “All we do is work”.
The Blessed singer then shared an Instagram Story in which she could be heard singing along to Tjay’s hit single, Calling My Phone with 6LACK, which became the No. 1 streaming song on Apple Music and Spotify when it was released. The song eventually topped the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Chart in February.