Dancehall deejay and songwriter Shane O is delighting in the push DJ Khaled has given his Trap-infused track, Dark Room, after the producer/DJ shared a video of himself cheering as the Jamaican belted out the song, at a location somewhere in Kingston and declared him and the song as “fire”. When Shane O’s released the visuals for Dark Room, last month, it was hailed as “a breath of fresh air” by Dancehall fans, who lamented that they have become fed up with the monotonous, unmelodious and bellicose lyrical content which have characterized the majority of Trap songs being recorded in Jamaica.
The track, which was recorded last year, was released in March this year and was deemed by many as another masterpiece by Shane O, and as evidence that Trap does not have to be centred on violent and hedonistic criminal lifestyles, such as scamming and witchcraft. Shane O’s figurative Dark Room addresses the struggles associated with being abandoned by those closest, betrayal by those once trusted, unsurety, and a reliance on ganja to ease the concomitant pain, but also coming to the realisation that these sorrows are all a part of life’s journey.
In the accompanying music video for the track, which has now amassed more than 1.6 million views, Shane O sits on a chair in an old building, lighting his spliff, as he laments a myriad of woes, in what can be described as one of the finest examples of songwriting to emerge out of the Jamaican Trap sub-genre.
Shane O, whose given name is Roshain McDonald, has said that he felt the first quarter of this year was the ideal time to release the song, as the trajectory of the music was trending towards reality. “But I never drop it because you know music change. This time around a reality time now, so you haffi can blend in with every genre for the change,” he had said. Shane O’s YouTube followers were ecstatic about the song, which they contended, not only serves to calm spirits in dark times, but demonstrates that the artist’s penmanship places him amongst Jamaica’s lyrical greats.
The now 35-year-old exploded onto the Dancehall scene in 2004 at age 16, while a student at Kingston Technical High School, with the mega-hit Lightning Flash on Jah Snowcone’s Applause riddim, which also had hits such as Sean Paul’s Temperature and Sizzla’s Run Out Pon Dem (Big Long Gun).
Shane O, who, in addition to being a deejay and songwriter, has music producer among his other credentials, had revealed that got the beat for the track from YouTube, and composed the song over the course of a few days.
“You know say a YouTube mi a scroll through because me is a man who sing right through and do music right through and mi deh deh a scroll and mi hear the beat and mi jus deh pon ‘A me alone inna the dark room and mi no have nobody fi talk to; a jus me, myself and I and my shadow’ and mi stuck right deh so until mi add lights out,” he had explained at the time.
