It subverts the idea that this woman who masterminded their heist is merely a cheerleader here, she’s the quarterback. The correlation between mother-mobster of authority and clever girlfriend henchman is both powerful and hilarious. In the original, the lyric “Mama loves you too, she thinks I made the right selection” corresponds to a mom sitting mobster-style by a blazing fire, nodding calculated approval while clutching a dalmatian across her lap.
She’s dressed in a collared shirt and long pants the entire video, and she sizzles. The video does much to mitigate his somewhat narrow lyrics she’s the one that drives the car, seduces the unsuspecting bank teller, and pulls off the heist. In the initial clip, OMI and his cheerleader - dark-skinned, dreaded, and fierce - rob a bank together and then drive down a freeway gleefully throwing cash in the air. The dramatic differences between “Cheerleader”‘s first video and its new one double down on this in glaring terms.
Furious 7 is almost out of theaters, right?Īt this point, though, OMI has the full momentum of the corporate-pop music machine behind him. “Trap Queen” has been lurking around #2 and #3 slots for several weeks this summer, and it seems likely that either that song or “Cheerleader” will knock “See You Again” off the throne. Such was the case for this year’s other oddball success story, Fetty Wap’s “Trap Queen,” which officially came out in March of last year. They’re slower to catch on, but they eventually hit big. The charts’ tendency to gobble up songs that mildly pull from foreign genres and mix those exotic sounds with more digestible pop elements are time-tested. Currently, it’s only behind dream-team Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar’s “Bad Blood” remix, and Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s reigning mediocrity-pop ballad “See You Again.” “Cheerleader” making it to #1 feels inevitable due to a number of factors, both objective ( Shazam data) and subjective (its Caribbean inflections and chirpy brass snippets). The song has been slowly but steadily climbing the ranks ever since, and this week, it ascended another spot up to #3. Will “Cheerleader” have the same success in the US? It certainly seems so. for the first time, and by then, it had already gone to #1 on various equivalent charts in 20 different countries. That initial week of May was when the song finally hit the Hot 100 in the U.S. It debuted during the week of 4/12 and hit #1 just three weeks later by the week of 5/3. Between Cowell’s capers and his co-sign, the song made a rapid rise in the UK a few months ago. Any attention from Cowell generally helps emerging artists, but his decision to release the remix of the song in the UK via his Syco label had even more of an effect. Next, a viral video of Simon Cowell deadpanning the song emerged in late April, along with a brand new, decidedly Americanized video - more on that later. That clip, which you can watch below, has over 150 million views to date.īy January 2015, the track was designated Sony’s “Song Of The Month” and had the full heft of a major-label promotional campaign behind it. The original video was recut to match Jaehn’s new edit, and released in November of last year. Jaehn sped it up a bit, sprinkled in some feathery trumpet and saxophone here, some lightweight conga there, and finished it off with a tinkling piano section.
Moxey enlisted Jaehn, whose remix breathed new life into the original’s pop-reggae fusion. OMI was signed to Ultra by the label founder and head of Sony’s electronic music division, Patrick Moxey, who heard the song in 2013 while in Canada. It wasn’t until two years later, though, in the summer of 2014, that German DJ Felix Jaehn’s rework of the track began to gain serious international momentum. Initially released in Jamaica back in 2012 via Oufah - Dillon’s management/label hub - the original song became a hit in Jamaica, as well as in Hawaii. If “Cheerleaders”‘s current trajectory is any indication, Dillon and OMI are destined for success far beyond their native island. He’s groomed dancehall artists like Shabba Ranks, Patra, Alborosie, and Ky-mani Marley over the years, shaping their sounds and introducing local stars to international audiences. Dillon is one of the most instrumental figures in Jamaican music industry. The original track was co-written and co-produced primarily by OMI himself and his manager Clifton “Specialist” Dillon. Omar - aka OMI - is the breakout Jamaican pop star behind “Cheerleader,” a three-year-old late-entry for this year’s song of the summer. Girls haven’t begun to dub themselves as their boyfriend’s “cheerleader” yet in Instagram captions. The name Omar Samuel Pasley probably doesn’t ring any bells.