Shaneil Muir says she is ‘secure’ in her own skin

Confidence is a badge of honour that dancehall artiste Shaneil Muir wears proudly. Even when she has come under tremendous pressure to surgically alter her image to match her dancehall persona, Muir has stood her ground. Pointing out that to each his own, Muir said she is so secure in the woman she has become that she has drowned out any noise about her image.

“Something that keeps me confident is the whole process of understanding who I am. I will never speak down or ill of anyone who wants to change anything about their bodies. If enhancements are your thing, it’s your body and in dancehall, I completely understand why some do it. But for me, I am good,” she said. “There is beauty on the outside and there is beauty on the inside and I have learnt to love who I am from the inside out and to me, that’s a beautiful thing. I understand why I have the features that I have as a black woman and I love and appreciate it.”

Muir, who released her Echoes of Her EP on Friday, told the Jamaica Observer that she went through her fair share of struggles with body image. She shared that while she has matured into a “thick, dancehall vixen”, she was once a skinny young woman who endured body-shaming based on her diminutive stature.

“Like I said before, it all comes down to self-love and being secure in your skin. When I was much younger, I used to be skinny. Mi neck was long and I was skin and bones and back then people used to tease me say mi meagre. Because of that, I started to eat a lot thinking I’d put on weight and it would stop but then doing that affected me in the long run,” she shared. “When you get older your metabolic rate is not the same and so your body stores more fat than it burns. Pretty soon I was putting on the weight and that came with a fresh dose of teasing. So I say that to say this, you can’t please people so make sure you love yourself so much, you don’t feel the need to.”

Muir went on to point out that she wanted to use her platform to advocate for women who have faced body-shaming.

“My journey to appreciating who I am and the body I have has been rewarding for me and I just want to use my music and my voice to be an advocate for that because I know there are females out there who hate themselves because they don’t understand who they are,” she shared. “If I can be the one to enlighten them and they’ll get to see that they’re not in it alone, it’ll be easier. I am just as imperfect as any of you but I have educated myself about who I am, especially as a PCOS girlie and I adore who I am.”

The Secured singer says her repertoire is a reflection of the mission she hopes to fulfil using music. She shared that with all the issues women face surrounding body image and the need to be perfect, her songs will always act as a source of empowerment.

“That’s why I sing songs like Secured, Exclusive, So Confident. I want women to listen to those tracks and feel such a deep sense of self-love that they won’t want to change anything about themselves. It may sound cliché but a lot of the issues we have with others stem from us not being comfortable with ourselves. You can’t love anyone if you don’t love yourselves.”