Denise “Saucy Wow” Belfon says her phone has been buzzing after Drake sampled her iconic 1998 track “Work.”
NARIS-SA FRAS-ER Free-lance Cor-re-spon-dent Cana-di-an rap-per Drake has now joined the list of en-ter-tain-ers to sam-ple Denise “Saucy Wow” Bel-fon’s icon-ic song Work, and she is elat-ed.. She told Guardian Me-dia her phone has been buzzing non-stop, and some fans are even hop-ing the two get the chance to share the stage.. The five-time Gram-my Award-win-ning rap-per re-leased three al-bums on Fri-day, Maid of Hon-or, Ice-man and Habibti.. The sam-ple of the so-ca track can
be heard near-ing the end of track sev-en, BBW, on the Maid of Hon-or al-bum.. T&T fans took to so-cial me-dia ear-ly on Fri-day morn-ing to ex-press both their shock and ex-cite-ment up-on hear-ing Bel-fon’s icon-ic “Put yuh back in it” line.. Sev-er-al en-ter-tain-ers have sam-pled the song over the years, in-clud-ing Ja-maican dance-hall singer Shenseea and US rap-per Megan Thee Stal-lion in their 2022 song Lick.. French DJ David Guet-ta al-so remixed it dur-ing
a set at the pop-u-lar EDM fes-ti-val To-mor-row-land in Bel-gium.. Ad-di-tion-al-ly, in 2020, the Put Yuh Back In It chal-lenge led to the song go-ing vi-ral yet again on so-cial me-dia.. Asked if she ever an-tic-i-pat-ed the 1998 track be-com-ing this ma-jor decades lat-er, Bel-fon laugh-ing-ly ad-mit-ted: “Nev-er.” Ex-plain-ing that she record-ed the hit song in the stu-dio in just one take, she said it was at a time when she was just be-ing free,
cre-ative and hap-py.. “And now this 28-year-old song is still liv-ing on.. It has been remixed, re-done, sung over in oth-er lan-guages, dif-fer-ent DJs all over the world… It has over 8,000 remix-es world-wide.” But still, this one was spe-cial.. On Drake sam-pling the song, she said, “I feel won-der-ful, elat-ed and ex-cit-ed,” re-call-ing that she had been in dis-be-lief when she was first told about the project ahead of its re-lease.. “It was a
con-ver-sa-tion with my at-tor-ney and my pub-lish-ers about the dif-fer-ent projects hap-pen-ing at the time, and they men-tioned Drake and I was like, ‘What?. Re-peat that, please.’” And even af-ter more than two rep-e-ti-tions, she was still in shock.. “I said I still need-ed to see this (be re-leased) to be-lieve it.” And so said, so done.. She woke up to a flood of mes-sages and missed calls on Fri-day, not know-ing the al-bum was
out.. “My phone just keeps buzzing,” she said.. She al-so sought to as-sure fans that “things were dealt with prop-er-ly and legal-ly,” as some have been ques-tion-ing whether the sam-ple was cleared.. “My fans want to see me win and I am very grate-ful for the type of fans that I have.. They al-ways want to see me get my flow-ers.” She sees her-self as a cul-tur-al am-bas-sador as she con-tin-ues to pro-mote T&T and
its cul-ture.. “Every-thing I do is for my cul-ture and Caribbean peo-ple and I’m a force to be reck-oned with.. It’s so up-lift-ing to be a part of projects like these to see oth-er artistes re-spect and ad-mire my work.” She added, “‘Nuff re-spect to Drake and his team, and al-so to my team for mak-ing every-thing pos-si-ble and mak-ing it great.” The track, BBW, and the al-bum, Maid of Hon-or, are avail-able on all
dig-i-tal mu-sic-stream-ing plat-forms.. Some fans have said they want to see both singers on stage to-geth-er per-form-ing it, or for Bel-fon to be fea-tured in the song’s mu-sic video.. And she had just one word to say when asked if she would be open to that: “Def-i-nite-ly.”
Denise Belfon, Drake sampling, Work song, Maid of Honor album, Put yuh back in it, BBW track