A Trinidadian soca artist who recorded a single-take vocal in 1998 is finally being paid for it — because Drake sampled her song.

Denise Belfon, 57, recorded 'Work' in 1998 in a single take, according to Billboard. The track became a soca anthem, then a house track, then a festival staple, then a TikTok trend — all without the singer seeing producer royalties from its creator, Pupa Nas-T, who had refused to pay her for 28 years.

That changed after Drake. On May 15, 2026, Drake released a triple album — 'Iceman,' 'Habibti,' and 'Maid of Honour' — that included the song 'BBW,' which samples 'Work' and features Belfon's vocals. Following that release, Pupa Nas-T agreed to pay Belfon royalties he had withheld since the song was recorded.

'Work' has had a long, strange second life across genres and decades. Masters at Work, the New York production duo, remixed it in 2000, turning the soca original into a house track. David Guetta played it during his 2010 Tomorrowland mainstage set, helping establish the song as an EDM festival mainstay. In 2014, Los Angeles-born DJ RL Grime reworked a version by Nadus called 'Nxwxrk' that folded Belfon's vocal into Jersey club rhythms and heavy bass.

The song kept travelling. In 2019, DJ Flex and the Jamaican production team Equiknoxx reimagined 'Work' as 'Put Your Back In It,' which became a viral TikTok dance challenge in early-to-mid 2020. Scottish DJ Kevin McKay remixed 'Work' in 2022. English DJ James Hype remixed it in 2026.

Other artists have sampled it too. Shenseea's 2022 track 'Lick,' featuring Megan Thee Stallion, used Belfon's 'Work' and earned nearly 31 million official on-demand U.S. streams — a figure that counts plays across streaming services converted into a single total. Leigh-Anne, formerly of Little Mix, also sampled 'Work' on her song 'Been A Minute.'

Through all of it, Belfon said she felt bypassed. 'I laid the bricks for the building to go up, yet they don't remember who put it down,' she told Billboard.

What makes the story land is the scale of the gap between the song's reach and the singer's recognition. 'Work' crossed from Trinidadian soca into house, EDM, Jersey club, dancehall-adjacent production and mainstream pop — and the woman whose voice carried it across every one of those borders spent nearly three decades waiting to be paid by the producer who owned the original. Drake's version did not create the song's legacy. It created the leverage.