The Jamaican Patwah dictionary defines “bruk” as the act of breaking or the state of being broken, serving as both the present tense ‘break’ and past tense ‘broke’ or ‘broken’.
The same dictionary gives “bruk off” as “break off.” “Yuh” is the Patois spelling of “your.” A related phrase, “bruk out,” is often used in dancehall culture for dancing with lots of energy and no inhibitions.
In the chorus, Konshens tells a woman to whine, the Caribbean hip-rolling dance, until she breaks off her back.
Boomshots noted in 2017 that the song opens with the question “Wah dis make you feel like do?”, which asks what the music makes the listener want to do.
The dance reading is only part of it. According to a 2023 DancehallMag report, Konshens, in an interview with VladTV in 2017, described the song as being about “aggressive sex.”
The same report says the song’s original title had been revised for broader appeal, drawing inspiration from a popular Jamaican dance in the mid-2010s.
The Story Behind the Song
The song is built on the Moskato riddim produced by Christopher Birch, whose label is Birchill Records. In the 2023 DancehallMag interview, Birch recalled: “In 2016, I started working on the project, the Moskato riddim, I voiced two artists before I voiced Konshens.
Konshens said the song came together quickly. Speaking with Seani B, as reported by Boomshots in March 2017, he said: “I know when something has the right sound. The producer sent me the track and it seemed to click together very easily. We shot the video and the rest is history.”
Shazam lists the single as released on 8 May 2016 by Birchill Records. Audiomack gives a different date for the Birchill release: December 22, 2016. May 2016 matches the official video date, but because the platforms disagree, the exact date is not settled.
The credits also differ by platform. Deezer’s listing for the album version names Composer: Mark Collinder.
Shazam credits the remix to Christopher Maurice Brown, Garfield Delano Spence, Garfield Delano Spence being Konshens’s legal name.
Birchill Records produced the single while Dameon Gayle directed the video, according to Urban Islandz in 2019.
Boomshots wrote in 2017 that Gayle’s video starts off like a movie and ends up bringing dancehall vibes to the wilderness and uncharted territory.
The Chris Brown Remix
Boomshots reports that the remix with Chris Brown came out on March 21, 2017. Apple Music lists the remix single with a 21 March 2017 date on Subkonshus Music. Vibe wrote that on the remix, Breezy flexes his patois flow.
Konshens told The Star in 2019 that the collaboration helped his profile in the United States: “It put my name in certain conversations and on certain scenes that it was not in before. As for the song, I would say it peaked before Chris added his verse.”
The remix was later included on Konshens’s album It Feel Good, released March 2, 2018. LargeUp called it his second album and said it was the first release in a new joint venture between Konshens’ Subkonshus label and San Francisco-based Empire Distribution.
Commercial Impact
Figures have been reported at different times:
- March 2017: HipHop-N-More said the song had well over 60 million combined streams.
- April 2019: The official video had surpassed 160 million views on YouTube. The Star reported that this made Konshens the only Jamaican artiste outside of Sean Paul and the Marleys to attain more than 160 million views for a music video on YouTube.
- June 2023: DancehallMag reported that the video has accumulated over 169 million views on YouTube, while the track has over 80 million plays on Spotify. The remix video had over 13 million views on YouTube.
These numbers were recorded on those dates and have probably changed since.
In June 2023, the song gave Konshens his first Silver certification in the United Kingdom. The British Phonographic Industry awarded it on Friday, June 2, 2023.
In 2019, Konshens described it as his most successful record so far and told The Star: “I have different songs that are huge in different markets and opened up markets for me globally, but this song is surely one that has connected in every market globally.”
Later Use of the Song
WhoSampled lists the song as used in Farruko and Konshens’s Roatán (2019) for its vocals and lyrics. There have also been unofficial soca remixes, including one by DJ Triple Exe on Spotify dated 2017.
