Spice’s ‘Go Down Deh’ With Shaggy, Sean Paul Goes Platinum In Canada
Queen of Dancehall Spice has earned her first platinum certification in Canada with Go Down Deh, her 2021 collaboration with Dancehall superstars Shaggy and Sean Paul.
According to Music Canada, the song was issued the Platinum Single certification on Tuesday, February 6, after it surpassed 80,000 units from singles sales and on-demand streaming in the country. In Canada, 10 track downloads and/or 1,500 on-demand streams are equivalent to one unit.
This is Shaggy’s third single to reach the Platinum milestone in Canada, following Hey Sexy Lady with Brian & Tony Gold and Banana with Conkarah. Sean Paul now holds an impressive eight Platinum singles in the country, including Rockabye with Clean Bandit and Anne-Marie (9X Platinum), Temperature (3X Platinum), and Get Busy (2X Platinum).
Released in April 2021, Go Down Deh was the lead single on Spice’s VP Records debut, 10.
Neil “Diamond” Edwards, Senior Director of A&R at VP, offered congratulations to the singer on the milestone. “Her consistent hard work has paid off. This just goes to show that the brand ‘dancehall’ is still alive,” he told DancehallMag.
The Sheet singer had explained that she was just “doing her duty as the waistline queen” when she set things in motion for Go Down Deh. She said she initially walked in on the song being played by Shaggy.
“[The song] was already done and had Shaggy’s voice on it and I was the one who said I want to be a part of this immediately from I heard the track because everybody knows I’m the waistline queen, I like to wine and go down”, the Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta star told DancehallMag. “I just had to have it.”
The beat, rife with Middle Eastern influences but still retaining an authentic basement sound, was produced by Romanian Constantin “Costi” Ioniță, who had also produced Shaggy’s Billboard Hot 100 hit I Need Your Love.
“(Shaggy) brought me into the Ranch Studio in New York, and there I met Spice. And I played some beats and then we started to flow and play and that’s it. They liked the vibe and energy and here it is “guh dung deh”,” Costi previously told DancehallMag.
Go Down Deh currently has over 198 million plays on Spotify, while the official music video has over 250 million views on YouTube. It is the one of the most streamed Jamaican-led songs since Sean Paul’s Mad Love with David Guetta and Becky (2018) and No Lie with Dua Lipa (2016).
The song’s potential for crossover appeal wasn’t lost on Spice even before its release.
She acknowledged that Shaggy and Sean Paul have international clout – one of her main musical aspirations – giving the track a wider reach. “Within the dancehall space we always try to go outside of the genre to get that international crossover record, but these two giants in the genre have done it and have the audience for it so why not have them come together on a track?” she said.
In December 2021, former President of the United States Barack Obama included the song on his annual list of favorite songs.
DancehallMag ranked Go Down Deh at No. 3 on its list of Best Dancehall Songs Of 2021, while NPR called the song “the dancehall track of the year (2021),” adding that the Spice has “generated deserved buzz earlier this year for releasing the first official album of her 18-year career.”
Spice’s 10 album peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart, and was later nominated for Best Reggae Album at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards.
In 2022, she followed up with her second album, Emancipated, which peaked at No. 7 on the Reggae chart.
The singer says she’s currently writing songs for her third studio album, which is expected to be released later this year.