The drake controlla sample question has a more layered answer than most listeners realize. The official album version of “Controlla” that appeared on Drake’s fourth studio album Views is not simply a track with one borrowed hook.
It is a carefully assembled piece of dancehall architecture drawing on a classic 1995 Jamaican recording, a production team with deep roots in Kingston, and an additional live Beenie Man vocal cameo, while a separately leaked version featuring Popcaan added yet another layer to the song’s complicated history. Here is a complete breakdown of every dancehall element, credit, and voice on the record.
What Is ‘Controlla’ and Where Does It Come From?
“Controlla” is a song by Canadian rapper Drake, recorded for his fourth studio album Views, released as a single on June 7, 2016, and classified as a dancehall track. It reached number 16 on the US Billboard Hot 100, number 18 in the UK, and number 27 in Canada.
Of the five singles released from Views, three were primarily dancehall songs: “One Dance,” “Controlla,” and “Too Good.”
That density of Caribbean influence was not accidental. It reflected both Drake’s personal affinities and the Jamaican backgrounds of key collaborators in his inner circle.
The Core Sample: Beenie Man’s ‘Tear Off Mi Garment’ (1995)
The foundational dancehall element in “Controlla” is a sample pulled directly from the Jamaican golden era. “Controlla” contains a sample of “Tear Off Mi Garment” by Beenie Man.
“Tear Off Mi Garment” is a song by Beenie Man from the album Blessed, released in 1995. “Tear Off Mi Garment” was produced by Patrick Roberts.
The track was recorded under Roberts’ Shocking Vibes imprint, one of Jamaica’s most prolific dancehall production houses of that era.
Blessed was released on July 17, 1995, and was Beenie Man’s first album to receive an international release, gaining him a large following outside Jamaica for the first time.
In the album version of “Controlla,” the sample from “Tear Off Mi Garment” appears at the 2:04 mark, while the corresponding moment in the Beenie Man original can be heard at 0:25.
“Tear Off Mi Garment” itself contains a sample of the traditional folk song “Bingo,” meaning “Controlla” is, in a sense, built on at least two layers of borrowed material, a common structural practice in dancehall production.
The songwriting credits on “Controlla” reflect the legal clearance of this sample. The official songwriters listed include Aubrey Graham (Drake), Matthew Samuels (Boi-1da), Allen Ritter, Dwayne Chin-Quee (Supa Dups), Stephen McGregor (Di Genius), Garfield Riley Jr., Moses Davis (Beenie Man), Donald Dennis, Gary Jackson, Patrick Roberts, Andrew Thomas, Andrae Hugh Sutherland, and Melvyn Gonzalez. The names Dennis, Jackson, Roberts, Thomas, and Davis correspond directly to the writing credits on “Tear Off Mi Garment,” confirming the sample’s clearance.
Beenie Man’s Live Vocal Cameo
Beyond the sample, Beenie Man himself appears on the album version of the track. Beenie Man appears at the end of “Controlla.” In the album version, Beenie Man also appears at the end in a freshly recorded vocal.
In a Billboard interview following Views‘ release, Beenie Man spoke about the experience. “For somebody to take a song that I’ve been done for 15 years, to release and put it out, it’s a big deal,” he said.
He framed the collaboration within a broader context of dancehall’s growing mainstream reach, noting that dancehall is a culture that everyone wants to be a part of.
This dual presence, sampled recording plus live outro, makes Beenie Man’s contribution to “Controlla” two-fold and qualitatively distinct from a typical interpolation or clearance situation.
The Popcaan Version: A Separate Leaked Cut
A significant portion of listener confusion around the drake controlla sample stems from the existence of two distinct versions of the song. The album version with the Beenie Man sample was not the first version to circulate publicly.
Prior to the album’s release, “Controlla” was one of two tracks from Views leaked online; the leaked version featured dancehall artist Popcaan. On March 29, 2016, a song entitled “Controlla” by Drake was leaked, with Popcaan being featured on it.
The album version features a sample of Beenie Man’s “Tear Off Mi Garment,” plus Beenie Man tagging the song’s outro, but no Popcaan.
The switch provoked an immediate reaction online when Views dropped on Apple Music on April 29, 2016.
Popcaan’s original contribution to Drake’s 2016 track “Controlla” was left off the official album version. The relationship between the two artists remained intact regardless. In 2016, Popcaan signed with Drake’s record label OVO Sound and Warner Records.
Popcaan was previously signed to Drake’s OVO Sound, where he released the 2019 mixtape Vanquish, followed by Fixtape in 2020 and Great Is He in 2023.
It was also noted at the time of Views‘ release that Popcaan did not go entirely uncredited on the album. Popcaan appears on the album on “Too Good,” with a sample of his song “Love Yuh Bad.”
It was not until 2026 that Popcaan finally received a formal credited feature on a Drake album project. The link-up marked Popcaan’s first credited feature on a Drake album, after many years of friendship and close musical ties between the two.
The Production Team: A Jamaican Diaspora Operation
Understanding who built “Controlla” is inseparable from understanding the dancehall sample and its integration into the track. The production credits reveal a team with organic roots in Jamaican music.
“Controlla” was produced by Boi-1da, Supa Dups, Allen Ritter, and Di Genius.
Boi-1da, born in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in Toronto, was the primary architect behind the tropical vibes on Drake’s “Controlla.”
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Boi-1da moved to Toronto as a child, and even when he is not making a beat that clearly pulls from the reggae lexicon, the influence of Jamaican genres crops up in his productions.
His father was a keen listener of dancehall music, and so Samuels was brought up listening to Jamaican music.
In 2016, Boi-1da soothed Drake’s transition into dancehall, producing the number-one Rihanna collaboration “Work” as well as Views‘ “Controlla.”
Supa Dups, born in Jamaica, is one of the most accomplished dancehall and reggae producers to cross over into mainstream hip-hop, with production credits spanning artists from Buju Banton to Jay-Z. His presence on “Controlla” deepened the record’s authentic dancehall engineering.
Stephen McGregor, known professionally as Di Genius, is the son of legendary reggae singer Freddie McGregor. Billboard.com listed Di Genius as one of the producers who brought dancehall back to the mainstream, noting his work on Drake’s hit song “Controlla” off the multi-platinum selling album Views.
Chart Performance and Critical Reception
The track reached number 16 on the US Billboard Hot 100, number 18 in the UK, and number 27 in Canada. Pitchfork listed “Controlla” on their ranking of the 100 best songs of 2016 at number 62.
The song arrived in the context of a record-breaking parent album. Views debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, with 1.04 million album-equivalent units in its first week of release, including 852,000 copies, and achieving a then-record over 245 million streams.
Why the Sample Matters: Dancehall Authenticity in a Mainstream Context
The selection of “Tear Off Mi Garment” as the source material for “Controlla” was not arbitrary. By anchoring the production in a Beenie Man record from 1995 and then bringing Beenie Man himself into the studio to tag the outro, the track connected to dancehall’s mid-1990s golden period rather than simply approximating its surface sound.
As Boi-1da described the Views sessions: “It’s a really dope album because he went out of his comfort zone and tried something new, and basically introduced a new sound into the game with the afrobeats and the dancehall vibes. It was something fresh.”
Drake himself articulated his deep investment in the genre. In an interview with Nardwuar, he said: “I am into any dancehall, any reggae, conscious, whatever, it doesn’t matter I’ll listen to anything. I feel like the writing, the melodies and the layering of the music in the genre is incredible.”
The combination of a cleared Jamaican sample, a live cameo from Beenie Man, a Popcaan performance on the leak, and a Jamaican-born production crew made “Controlla” one of the most structurally dancehall-grounded records of Drake’s career, as opposed to a genre-adjacent crossover experiment.
Quick-Reference: Every Dancehall Element in ‘Controlla’
| Element | Source | Notes |
| Core sample | “Tear Off Mi Garment” by Beenie Man (1995) | Appears at 2:04 in “Controlla” |
| Sample producer | Patrick Roberts (Shocking Vibes) | One of Jamaica’s premier dancehall producers |
| Live vocal cameo | Beenie Man (Moses Davis) | Freshly recorded outro on the album version |
| Leaked version | Popcaan (Andrae Hugh Sutherland) | Not included on the final album cut |
| Lead producer | Boi-1da (Matthew Samuels) | Born in Kingston, Jamaica |
| Co-producer | Di Genius (Stephen McGregor) | Son of reggae legend Freddie McGregor |
| Co-producer | Supa Dups (Dwayne Chin-Quee) | Jamaican-born veteran dancehall producer |
Conclusion
The drake controlla sample story is ultimately a story about the Jamaican diaspora’s central role in shaping one of the most commercially dominant rap albums of 2016.
The Beenie Man sample reaches back thirty-one years to a Patrick Roberts production on Island Jamaica, the production team is anchored by a Kingston-born beatmaker, and the live outro brings the original-era performer himself into the contemporary recording.
The Popcaan version, circulated before the album’s release, adds yet another layer of Caribbean artistry that, while absent from the final cut, deepened the song’s dancehall pedigree in public memory.
Taken together, these elements make “Controlla” less a borrowed aesthetic than a genuine crossroads where 1990s Jamaican dancehall and 2010s Toronto rap formally met.
