Foxy Brown Releases Remastered Video For ‘Oh Yeah’ With Spragga Benz

Fans of Rap/Dancehall fusions received an unexpected gift last week with Brooklyn rapper Foxy Brown releasing a remastered version of the music video for Oh Yeah, her hit 2001 song featuring her then-boyfriend Spragga Benz.

The song — which sampled vocals and the instrumental from Toots and the Maytals’ iconic 1968 song 54-46 That’s My Number — appeared on Foxy’s third album, Broken Silence.

She also recently shared a remastered version of the video for B.K. Anthem, a song released as a B-side to Oh Yeah, and which also appeared on the album.

Oh Yeah showcases the rapper’s signature blend of hardcore rhymes and gritty hooks, while Spragga Benz adds a Dancehall touch. The two were in a relationship and even got engaged in the early 2000s, before breaking up in 2003.

In Foxy’s verses, she proclaims her status as “the most critically acclaimed rap b#@ch in the game”, while flexing her wealth and power. Spragga Benz takes over at intervals with some strong and assertive vocalizing, bellowing out the distinctive patois chant that makes up the song’s chorus, all while displaying the artist’s proud Jamaican roots.

The song’s music video was directed by Canadian filmmaker Director X, who also helmed the production of several classic videos from the era, including Sean Paul’s Gimme The Light, Get Busy, and I’m Still In Love With You, Wayne Wonder’s No Letting Go, and Jay-Z and The Neptunes’ Excuse Me Miss, among others.

Shot in Jamaica, the Oh Yeah video starts with Foxy Brown rapping in a forest near the river, before it took her to a party with her group Fox 5 (which includes her older brother Gavin Marchand).

The visuals featured fashion from both genres, with Foxy and her group donning the once-popular baggy clothes and fitted caps with flashy jewellery. Meanwhile, Spragga Benz makes the Dancehall influences clear, from old-school Dancehall settings and fashion pieces. There was also a combination of Jamaican dances and those originating in Brown’s Brooklyn, New York environment.

Toward the end of the video, Cham appears for an interlude with Foxy and they perform a snippet of another collab from Broken Silence titled Tables Will Turn, before the track reverts to its original.

Oh Yeah failed to debut on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, but it did peak at No. 63 on the R&B/Hip Hop Singles Chart and No. 22 on the Hot Rap Songs chart.

The song also peaked at No. 27 on the UK Singles chart.

In November 2004, Foxy announced that she would follow up Broken Silence with a new album titled Black Roses, inspired by Dancehall legend Barrington Levy‘s song of the same name.

“My best friend Barrington Levy has a song called ‘Black Roses.’ He’s been traveling all over the world and never seen a black rose in no other garden. When he found his black rose, he knew that sh-t was special. Y’all ni–as can have all the female rappers in the world, but there’s only one black rose. I feel that’s me,” Foxy told MTV at the time.

However, the following year Foxy announced that she had experienced severe and sudden hearing loss in both ears, and that she had not heard another person’s voice in six months.

Black Roses, which reportedly featured production by The Neptunes, Kanye West, Timbaland, Trackmasters, and Dave Kelly, and guest appearances by Barrington Levy, Dido, Luther Vandross, Mos Def, Cham, Spragga Benz, Shyne, Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, KRS-One, Roxanne Shante, and Jay-Z, was never released.

After Foxy had her hearing restored through surgery, the street album Brooklyn’s Don Diva was ultimately released in 2008.

It featured Mavado, Demarco, Lady Saw, Morgan Heritage, and Spragga Benz.