"What I say is from my heart. You must be sincere. So when I sing a song, people are supposed to feel it"
About this Quote
Wayne Wonder’s line is a clean statement of an unwritten contract in pop: the audience doesn’t just want a hook, they want a pulse. Coming from a reggae and dancehall singer whose biggest crossover moments (“No Letting Go”) depended on warmth as much as rhythm, “from my heart” isn’t some vague Hallmark pledge. It’s a strategy for surviving in a genre that can be brutally transactional - riddims get recycled, trends flip, and charisma can be mistaken for truth. He’s drawing a boundary between performance as craft and performance as testimony.
The interesting pivot is the word “supposed.” He’s not merely hoping people feel it; he’s insisting the song has an intended emotional destination. That’s the subtext: sincerity isn’t private, it’s engineered. You do the vocal choices, the phrasing, the little cracks of longing or swagger, so the listener lands where you want them to land. In dancehall culture especially, where “realness” is a kind of currency and audiences can smell posturing fast, sincerity becomes a credibility marker - a way to claim you’re not just riding the beat, you’re living the story.
There’s also a quiet pressure buried in “You must be sincere.” It reads like advice, but it’s also an artist’s self-discipline: if the heart isn’t in it, the crowd will drift to the next anthem. Wonder is naming what makes a song replayable beyond the club: not just sound, but felt intention.
The interesting pivot is the word “supposed.” He’s not merely hoping people feel it; he’s insisting the song has an intended emotional destination. That’s the subtext: sincerity isn’t private, it’s engineered. You do the vocal choices, the phrasing, the little cracks of longing or swagger, so the listener lands where you want them to land. In dancehall culture especially, where “realness” is a kind of currency and audiences can smell posturing fast, sincerity becomes a credibility marker - a way to claim you’re not just riding the beat, you’re living the story.
There’s also a quiet pressure buried in “You must be sincere.” It reads like advice, but it’s also an artist’s self-discipline: if the heart isn’t in it, the crowd will drift to the next anthem. Wonder is naming what makes a song replayable beyond the club: not just sound, but felt intention.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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