This summer keeps getting better and better for Jamaican singer, OMI. After topping the Billboard Hot 100 for the better part of two months with the Felix Jaehn-produced remix of his hit single, Cheerleader, the American magazine has rewarded him for this achievement by naming it the Song of The Summer for 2015.
The Song of the Summer honour takes into account cumulative performance on the Billboard Hot 100 from Memorial Day (May 25) until Labour Day (September 7). Cheerleader managed to hold off the likes of Wiz Khalifa’s See You Again and Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood for the honour. Reportedly, 87% of the the song’s 2.2 million downloads were purchases during the tracking period.
With this achievement, OMI is the first male artiste to win the honour with his first ever Hot 100 hit in Billboard’s 30-year archive of summer songs.
Cheerleader was originally recorded in 2012 to strong approval, but got a big boost thanks to Jaehn’s house-inspired spin on the song, making the beat catchier and more appealing to an international audience. That idea has reaped many benefits for OMI, including number ones in the United Kingdom, France and Australia as well as going four times platinum in Sweden.
He has been performing the song across the late night TV circuit in the United States and performed it alongside the aforementioned Taylor Swift as a special guest on her 1989 tour in California last week.
