The style of dancehall currently dominating the streets of England is quite different from the dancehall that ruled the Billboard Hot 100 in the early 2000s. Trap dancehall — the aptly named subgenre of trap-infused dancehall — has been king for the last couple of years, and Manchester-bred Jamaican dancehall artist 1Ski OG is looking to leverage his new stage name into a grand return to the royal court.
“When I came up with the name 1Ski Mask, it wasn’t planned,” he exclusively tells Billboard over Zoom while visiting family back home in Manchester, Jamaica. “I was just having fun and called myself that, it went viral and the name stuck with me at that time. Some artists already had the name overseas, so I was informed that for new releases I could no longer release under that name. I never wanted to stray from the name or change it completely, so I just removed the mask part. The ‘OG’ is a shortening for ‘original,’ I wanted people to know it’s still the same original 1Ski Mask.”
A former social media comedian, 1Ski OG rose to prominence as 1Ski Mask with “Dawkniss,” a Falconn-assisted single that arrived in spring 2023. To date, the song has amassed more than 1.5 million streams on Spotify alone, helping him score a deal with Against Da Grain/Epic Records by October 2024. In the years that followed, 1Ski’s musical output slowed down, due in large part to him taking some time to recalibrate following his signing and name change. Now, he’s readying a new project due later this year and launching his 1Ski OG era with a pair of new songs that he calls “more universal”: “Feel Like” and “Double Life.”
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For both songs, 1Ski took inspiration from his personal life. His “gyal at di time” served as the muse for “Feel Life,” which was recorded a year ago, and “Doube Life” is the product of his desire to “speak to the experience of living a double life with [yourself] and your partner” and his general observations of toxicity in daily interactions. The new songs build on the trap dancehall foundation he established upon his debut, but the melodic flourishes of their respective soundscapes signal a push into a more expansive sound.
“I’m not the kind of person who sticks to one sound because I’m thinking about longevity,” he says while musing over trap dancehall’s current dominance. “You have to create music that can last and trap dancehall is not so lasting. I don’t think it’s fully crossed over yet outside of New York, Florida, and Connecticut – places with a lot of Jamaicans. But what if you want to reach Africa or England or Canada? You have to always be open to change. The more potent and structured songs that we can all relate to are the ones that last. I still have trap and hardcore dancehall, but you have to have a mixture.”
With a new name, new music, and a clear, intentional focus behind the next stage of his career, 1Ski OG is ready not just to reintroduce himself, but also establish himself as one of the leading Caribbean artists of his class.
“We have to evolve and put the face behind the brand,” he stresses. “[The new name] gives you different options in terms of styling because nothing is tied to the mask anymore. The power is not in the mask, the power is in me.”
Watch the official “Feel Like” music video below.
