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Swedish dancehall artiste TeeTwerk said she is ready to take her place in the industry, hoping to be "the female Dexta Daps".

"You see how Dexta has that smooth vibe that has both men and women singing the lyrics and dancing? That is the vibe that I bring. I definitely see myself as the female Dexta Daps in dancehall," she said. For TeeTwerk, given name Matilda Saundbaum, it was never enough to stay home in Sweden.

"Since I aim to do dancehall music, I feel like I need to do it from the source," she told THE STAR.

But rather than the recording booth, TeeTwerk got her start on the dance floor. Her affinity for twerking was how her moniker came up. In 2021, after being spotted dancing in a music video for a Jamaican artiste filming in Sweden, she was invited to perform at a Jamaican Independence event.

"The producer was like, 'Don't tell me you can sing too.' And I went quiet, but then I said 'Yeah I think so,'" she recalled, laughing. "I went to the studio and never looked back since and that's when I decided to go to Jamaica."

She soon realised that what she wanted wasn't pop or R&B, but something deeper.

"I told my producer, 'This is not me. I want to do dancehall.' I have been listening to dancehall since 2010 and the more I listened the more I loved it and learnt about the genre," she said.

"For the first three years [it] was just about finding my sound, my vocals, what kind of music I want to do and I have been testing different things, leading more and more into dancehall, and dancehall coming from Jamaica, the source, and being quite raw and explicit about it because I like that. It's like I'm living out fantasies through my music." Over the past four years, TeeTwerk has put out several tracks, including last summer's six-track EP.

While she isn't shy about her sensual image, she's clear that there's ambition behind the brand.

"I want to be the female Dexta Daps and bring that energy to Europe," she declared. Her latest song, Miggle, and tracks such as Jamaican Lover, Boom and Bend and Stamina (her favourite from the EP) fuse explicit, sexy lyrics with club-ready beats.

Merrick Whyte of Inziman Productions, who works with Street Block Records and is helping to develop her sound, said TeeTwerk is worth betting on.

"We don't really work on a purely commercial basis," Whyte said. "We mostly collaborate with established, big-name artistes, but we are just as committed to putting in the work to help develop talented artistes we believe in, until they themselves become the big thing."

TeeTwerk is already feeling the love from not only supporters in Europe but Jamaican dancehall fans.

"The support I get from Jamaica is amazing! I have people here who want to work with me, so I just hope Europe and the rest of the world will follow."

Despite occasional criticism of cultural appropriation, TeeTwerk insists what she does is about love and respect.

"There's always going to be people that have negative thoughts, but I do something that I love [and] it's coming from my heart. I put my money into the music to give back to the culture as well."

Beyond her own career, she wants to build cultural bridges, even planning another "twerk trip" next January to bring her Swedish dance students here.

"All my students, I talk a lot about Jamaica and I promote Jamaica. I want them to come and feel the vibrant energy."

Whether dancing, teaching or recording, TeeTwerk is convinced she's right where she needs to be.

"[I] started out listening Vybz Kartel and Mavado, even though at first I didn't understand a word they were saying. But I loved the vibe, the rhythms and the energy the music gave," she laughed.

"But then listening to it more and listening to more female artistes like Shenseea, Spice and Shaniel Muir, they inspired me like I want to be a bad gyal like that too."