Q&A: Former Miss Jamaica takes us behind the scenes of Maluma’s new digital album

Back in December, Miami-based model Davina Bennett posted a video on Instagram of her snuggled up with Latin superstar Maluma on a music video set in Medellín, Colombia.

“We’re cooking something,” the Colombian singer says. “Better get ready.”

We know now that what they were heating up is “7 Días En Jamaica,” a surprise digital album that dropped on Jan. 28, which was Maluma’s 28th birthday.

Maluma made international headlinesrecently when a meet-and-greet in Wynwood got shut down by Miami police for ignoring COVID-19 protocols. The event was in support of the release of “7 Días En Jamaica” and may have gotten out of hand after the singer posted for his 57 million followers that he would stop by a pop-up gallery exhibit featuring a collaboration he did with artist Federico Uribe.

As the title implies, the album is a tribute to Jamaica. So it is fitting that Bennett, who was Miss Jamaica in 2017, appears in all seven of the music videos that make up #7DJ, getting more screen time than guest appearances by contributing music artists Charly Black and Ziggy Marley.

But Bennett, who lives in the Brickell neighborhood in downtown Miami, says she didn’t know any of that. It wasn’t until she was on set that she realized that she was in more than one music video.

”Even when I was in Jamaica for the shoot, I still did not know the ... magnitude of this project,” says Bennett, who divides her time between South Florida and Kingston. “I thought it was one video. The first days of shooting I turned to my stylist Neko Kelly and said, ‘They are shooting so many things for one song.’ And he said, ‘Davina, this is not one song. This is an entire album.”

Bennett — who is from Clarendon, Jamaica — says that was when she figured out why everyone on the set kept congratulating her.

“I’m thinking, why is Maluma congratulating me for one song,” she recalls. “I’m on set and everyone’s congratulating me. And I’m going with the wave, you know, being polite, but in my mind I’m thinking, What is going on? I’m grateful for the opportunity but why all this for one song? I almost had a heart attack in that moment when I realized. I am telling you I don’t know how to put into words how I felt in that moment.”

Here’s more about what went on behind the scenes in a Q&A conversation with Bennett.

Was it hard keeping this whole project a secret?

“It was very hard. It was extremely hard. I mean when you look at the way it looks and how it looks right now, that’s very hard to keep that secret. I mean this is Maluma. This is a superstar. This was my first album. Even with my family, I didn’t want to give them too much. I wanted them to live in the moment when the album dropped. This was the hardest secret I’ve ever had to keep.”

And you had to keep the secret for a long time, right?

“We started working last year in October and concluded in December. And you know, Jamaicans, we can be pretty nosy. They knew Maluma was in town. People were whispering. It was so hard. I got so many DMs trying to fish for information. That was like a full time job. It was no joke.”

It’s only been a week, but already some reviews, like with Rolling Stone magazine, are commenting on the authenticity of the music and visuals. How do you feel they did?

“Let me tell you this was not the cultural appropriation. No. Our culture was appreciated in every single detail of the visuals. They had a Jamaican lead, Jamacian creative and even a Jamaican production crew. They are consulting with us. They are asking us for advice. They kept asking questions on how to keep this authentic, asking us, ‘How would you do this?’

“There were some things that we would just bypass as Jamaicans, you know? We see it all the time so it doesn’t stand out to us. But those are the little things that make us unique. To see what they did with that, it was mind blowing. I remember on one of the sets, for the song ‘Chocolate,’ it was just the ... best design. Every little thing was just right, you know. It literally put me in tears. We were so much appreciated as a country ... our culture was being celebrated on really big platform.”

I hear you had some input on that during the filming. Is that true?

“The level of respect that they have for the culture, it goes very very deep. They consulted with me and my team from time to time. I remember one scene when we were shooting the song ‘Tonika’ with Ziggy Marley. We’re sitting with the director and the extras were playing their part. And I tell them ... ‘You need to be extra. You need to do more.’ It was good to see they took my instructions.”

You and Maluma look like you’re very comfortable with each other, which helps to make it look authentic.

“Me and Maluma, we have really great chemistry. We were free to do what we please with a simple direction, like ‘Have fun. Be flirty.’ So, I think with being so free … it allowed us to take in all that was happening, to live in the moment. And they captured it just as it was and that is why it looks so authentic. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like that before. You’re going to ask me about that kiss, aren’t you?”

No, I was not. But since you brought it up.

“That video is, right now, the No. 1 song from the album. It’s like 6.5 million and counting and I think it’s because of that famous kiss scene. I was so nervous. I said, ‘Lord guide me. I don’t want to look a fool on camera.’ And thank God. To be honest, we had that kissing scene and it was one take. I felt great that I was this one-hit-wonder girl.”

You shot in Jamaica and in Maluma’s native Colombia. Since you’re from Jamaica I was wondering what was your favorite location in Colombia?

“What really stood out in my mind was [the] island, Baru. We’re going to island, we’re heading there and I remember sitting up sayin, ‘Hold on. Hold on a minute. This is getting too real now.’ The more we went into this little town it was like being in downtown Kingston, you know? I didn’t know that there was so much diversity in Colombia. It was like in this town there were beautiful black exotic people. I feel like I was in heaven. I was like, ‘What the hell?’ The only difference was we don’t speak the same language. I was mind blown. That song was ‘Love’ with Charly Black. It was unbelievable.”

What is the thing that you will remember most about this project?

“I got to travel with my team. My stylist Neko Kelly and my hair stylist Melleisa Dawkins. This was their first time ever traveling and being on an international job. For me, that stood out. Most times the production, they come in Jamaica and they come in with their own team. I felt that was the highlight of the entire thing for me. It...showed me how we were appreciated. And while shooting in Jamaica, [I] got to work with local makeup artists Keneisha Bryan and Teeah Anderson.

How is modeling work with the pandemic? I know you paint, so have you been doing a lot of that?

“Last year it really put a halt to everything. I was mostly doing appearances, speaking and branding things. That came to a hard stop. I was in the Cayman Islands training Miss World contestants. Then we had to leave because they said the Cayman Islands are completely closed and shut down. I started painting some months after. It did very well. The collection is completely sold out. After that came the Maluma project, toward the end of the year. So I ended the year with a bang.”

Tell me about your non-profit foundation.

“That is the Davina Bennett Foundation for the Deaf. This foundation I started in just before my pageant journey had begun in 2017. Basically it was founded because of a girl I met ... a deaf model when I was training models back in Jamaica. I fell in love with her .. . because regardless of what she was going through, she didn’t let that stop her, so I was inspired. We have done beautification projects in deaf schools and donated equipment. And as recently as last year, before Covid, we went to Barbados and did a model workshop and raised funds to give back to the deaf community there.”