Denyque Says Father Briefly Stopped Talking Her To Over Dancehall Career
Jamaican singer Denyque revealed that her father had stopped talking to her for a whole four years after she got up the courage to tell him school wasn’t her thing.
Speaking this week on Odyssey with Yendi, the Make Me Believe singer was so sure of her decision to pursue Dancehall music that even when her dad tried to impede the process, she went ahead and did it anyway.
At the time Denyque had just completed a year at the University of Technology, studying Tourism Management and her father, unknowing of her impending epiphany to quit, couldn’t have been prouder.
Denyque said her father heavily influenced her initial decision to embark on that area of study after failing to pursue what she really wanted to do back then, which was something in Media.
“I got into Utech for Tourism Management, of course daddy is going to push that because that makes more sense, that’s business,” Denyque said.
“Did it for a year, he told me I had to maintain a certain GPA, I did. I think my GPA was 3.4, and I was just like…‘Yeah Dad, I don’t wanna do this, I really don’t want to do this,” she said in relaying the story.
Naturally, her father tried to reason with her, also explaining that he had already forked out all that money for her tuition.
“I know I put him in a pickle, you know because he’s like ‘you know I’ve already paid for the year’ and I’m like ‘I know that and I’m so sorry but I promise I will make it up to you. This is not where my heart is … its not!’”
This would be the start of their four-year estrangement. “So … that was the beginning of my dad not talking to me. For four years, he was just like ‘nope, mm mm, don’t know you, I don’t want to be associated with you.’ I mean I don’t know if he actually said those things out loud, I doubt that he did but that’s how it felt.”
The Champion singer admitted that it took her dad not talking to her to push herself to prove him (and everyone else) wrong. “ I had to use that as fuel to keep going. Like I had to prove him wrong,” she said.
“That moment was when I realized that I always have to prove people wrong because for some reason, when I say I want to do something and when I show that I can do something, its just everybody trying to tell me ‘it cant happen’.”
“It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized that, that’s just people projecting their insecurities on me,” Denyque said.
Even though the experience overwhelmed her at the time, Denique said it didn’t stop her from diving full force ahead into pursuing her music career. She added that, at no point, did she feel any regret or doubts about her decision.
“Because of how thick my ego is or how thick my pride is, I have never said ‘I should have listened to my father’, never, never,” she said.
Denyque, who is now happily married and a mom of two, came into the spotlight after the release of her 2010 single Summer Love. Other big hits for her over the years were, Super Girl and Make Me Believe that both dropped in 2014, and Proud Wifey in 2016.
After taking a few personal breaks to build her family, Denyque is back on the music scene. A year ago, she teamed with fellow Dancehall diva Shaneil Muir on the single Same Guy to much fanfare, which is one of her best-streamed singles with over 9.5 millions views on YouTube.
Her latest tracks are Watch Him Tone, Champion, and Pretty.
Watch the full episode of Denyque on the Odyssey with Yendi here: