NARIS­SA FRAS­ER

Ja­maican dance­hall star Ma­sic­ka is no stranger to craft­ing hit songs. From top­ping re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al charts to gar­ner­ing bil­lions of streams on dig­i­tal plat­forms glob­al­ly, the award-win­ning artiste has ce­ment­ed his place as a ma­jor force with­in the genre. He has every right to be boasty.

As we ap­proach what his team and fans have dubbed “Sic­ka Sum­ma” (Ma­sic­ka Sum­mer), the singer’s lat­est string of sin­gles has al­ready had a ma­jor im­pact. Tracks in­clud­ing Boasty, Slip and Slide”, and his col­lab­o­ra­tion with Pro­to­je, Ting Loud, on the Gram­my-nom­i­nat­ed reg­gae singer’s lat­est al­bum The Art of Ac­cep­tance, con­tin­ue to trend. As he sings—or boasts—on the for­mer song, “Mi know fi hold my own, mi nuh play ‘bout it.”

His most re­cent track is Slip and Slide on the pop­u­lar Hill and Gul­ly Rid­dim by Gram­my Award-win­ning pro­duc­er Stephen “Di Ge­nius” Mc­Gre­gor. Many have hailed it as the best song on the rid­dim as it makes waves in his home coun­try, T&T, Grena­da, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Do­mini­ca, the Cay­man Is­lands, An­guil­la, Be­lize, St Kitts and Nevis and sev­er­al oth­er Caribbean coun­tries.

The song has fur­ther made its way across to the US, UK, Sey­chelles and Gam­bia. It al­so achieved the feat of be­ing the third most-searched-for song on Shaz­am glob­al­ly, and its mu­sic video is ap­proach­ing five mil­lion views on YouTube.

Over the years, he has won Caribbean Mu­sic Awards, En­ter­tain­ment Arts and Ex­cel­lence Awards, and most re­cent­ly, Best EP at the In­ter­na­tion­al Reg­gae and World Mu­sic Awards this month with his 2025 project Her Name Is Love.

Guardian Me­dia caught up with the Genah­syde artiste to dis­cuss his hits, hopes, up­com­ing al­bum and more.

Q: You’re no stranger to hav­ing hit songs re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, but how do you feel about this spe­cif­ic run with Boasty, Ting Loud and Slip and Slide?

A: It def­i­nite­ly feels spe­cial be­cause every song has its own en­er­gy and all three con­nect dif­fer­ent­ly with the peo­ple. “Boasty” is more of a cel­e­bra­tion an­them, “Ting Loud” brings a dif­fer­ent vibe and mes­sage, and “Slip and Slide” tapped in­to that au­then­tic dance­hall feel­ing.

As an artiste, when you can re­lease mul­ti­ple songs at the same time and each one finds its own au­di­ence or­gan­i­cal­ly, that shows growth and con­sis­ten­cy. I al­ways try to make mu­sic that feels re­al and time­less, so to see the re­sponse glob­al­ly and across the Caribbean is a bless­ing. The sup­port­ers have been locked in heavy and I ap­pre­ci­ate that ful­ly.

Q: In a re­cent in­ter­view, Pro­to­je praised you, say­ing, “For the past, I don’t know, how many years, the man just been drop­ping banger af­ter banger, big song af­ter big song. When yuh link Ma­sic­ka fi a fea­ture, tek it to the bank. Him know the ex­act en­er­gy what a fea­ture need.” We al­so re­cent­ly saw Bu­ju (Ban­ton) say­ing he sees you as the fu­ture of dance­hall. Can I get your re­sponse/re­ac­tion to these com­ments, as well as how it gen­er­al­ly feels to be re­spect­ed by some of the greats in the dance­hall and reg­gae are­nas?

A: First thing, re­spect to Pro­to­je and Bu­ju Ban­ton be­cause those are artistes who re­al­ly put work in­to the cul­ture. So any time peo­ple of that lev­el ac­knowl­edge what you’re do­ing, it means some­thing. For me, I’ve al­ways stayed fo­cused on the craft and the mu­sic. I put a lot of ef­fort in­to un­der­stand­ing songs, un­der­stand­ing en­er­gy, un­der­stand­ing what peo­ple feel.

So hear­ing Pro­to­je speak on fea­tures like that shows the work is be­ing recog­nised. And Bu­ju is some­body who rep­re­sents great­ness and longevi­ty in this cul­ture. To even hear my name men­tioned in that con­ver­sa­tion is hum­bling. It mo­ti­vates me to keep el­e­vat­ing and keep push­ing dance­hall for­ward in my own way.

Q: With re­gards to Slip and Slide, when were you sent the beat/ap­proached to be on the project?

A: Di Ge­nius sent me the rid­dim dur­ing the ear­ly stages of the project. From ear­ly, me could hear the po­ten­tial in it be­cause it had that au­then­tic dance­hall bounce but still sound­ed fresh.

Q: What was your ini­tial opin­ion of the beat?

A: The first thing that hit me was the en­er­gy. It re­mind­ed me of the type of rid­dims that bring ex­cite­ment back in­to dance­hall cul­ture, where every­body wants to dance, DJs want to jug­gle the songs, and fans start de­bat­ing favourites. It had that feel­ing im­me­di­ate­ly.

Q: When was the song ac­tu­al­ly writ­ten?

A: The song came to­geth­er pret­ty nat­u­ral­ly once I con­nect­ed with the vibe of the rid­dim. Some­times the best records hap­pen fast be­cause the en­er­gy just flows nat­u­ral­ly.

Q: Did you ex­pect it to do as well as it has been?

A: You al­ways want your mu­sic to con­nect, but you can nev­er ful­ly pre­dict how far a song will go. The re­ac­tion has def­i­nite­ly been pow­er­ful though, from the streets to so­cials to the clubs and par­ties world­wide. It’s a great feel­ing see­ing peo­ple gen­uine­ly en­joy the mu­sic.

Q: How does it feel to have what peo­ple are call­ing the best song on the rid­dim?

A: That’s love. The rid­dim has a lot of strong songs and artistes on it, so for peo­ple to sin­gle out “Slip and Slide” the way they have means the song re­al­ly made an im­pact. I just ap­pre­ci­ate the sup­port and the en­er­gy peo­ple con­tin­ue to show the track.

Q: We’ve been see­ing what peo­ple are call­ing a “come­back” of jug­gling rid­dims/cul­ture in dance­hall. What are your thoughts on this?

A: I think jug­gling cul­ture is im­por­tant to dance­hall be­cause it cre­ates mo­ments. It push­es cre­ativ­i­ty, com­pe­ti­tion and uni­ty at the same time. Every­body brings their own style to the same rid­dim and the fans get to de­bate and en­joy the mu­sic col­lec­tive­ly. Dance­hall was built on that en­er­gy, so see­ing it re­turn in a strong way is good for the cul­ture. It cre­ates ex­cite­ment again and re­minds peo­ple of the essence of dance­hall.

Q: You’ll be mak­ing your Sum­mer­jam de­but in a few months (Ju­ly). Are you ex­cit­ed?

A: Def­i­nite­ly. Sum­mer­jam is one of those fes­ti­vals with his­to­ry and a strong con­nec­tion to reg­gae and dance­hall cul­ture, es­pe­cial­ly in Eu­rope. Ger­many has al­ways shown me a lot of sup­port, so I’m look­ing for­ward to bring­ing that en­er­gy live and con­nect­ing with the fans out there.

Q: What else can fans ex­pect from Ma­sic­ka for 2026?

A: A lot more mu­sic, an al­bum, and a lot more mo­ments. The fans can def­i­nite­ly ex­pect new projects, col­lab­o­ra­tions, vi­su­als, and ma­jor…