Sean Paul has built a reputation as one of the best reggae artists working in the music industry with his commercial viability. One of dancehall and reggae’s most prolific artists of all time, he has taken the dancehall genre global, from its origin in clubs and street dances in Kingston, Jamaica to the top of the charts, packing some of the biggest venues in more than 120 countries. Only Sean has the distinction of being the first Jamaican to play shows in Uzbekistan and Burkino. The multi-award-winning Jamaican born, international dancehall/reggae icon, is renowned for his infectious beats and electrifying performances that captivate audiences worldwide.
With a string of chart-topping hits, Sean Paul has collaborated with artists including Beyoncé, Rihanna, Karol G, Manuel Turizo, Damian “Jr Gong” Marley, and Sia, showcasing his versatility and musical prowess. Continuously breaking barriers, Sean Paul’s unique blend of reggae and dancehall continues to dominate global charts and streaming platforms, solidifying his status as a music industry powerhouse. Recently recognized with nominations for the Billboard Latin Music Awards and Lo Nuestro Award, Sean Paul remains at the forefront of contemporary music, inspiring generations with his unparalleled talent and infectious energy.
Q: I know you are working on the 4th album and of course we want to hear as much as possible about this forthcoming project
SP: I have done 20 something tracks so far. I still have about a month left to finish the album off before I finally give it a name to put out there. It’s in the ¾ stage. I usually do about 30 songs and pick the best 17 or so. I don’t put out an album with less than 15 tracks. To me dancehall is a high-energy music, and you need to keep the energy out there and if you put a 12 track album out with dancehall to me it doesn’t really fit for it needs to have a little more tracks. I am working with producers such as Don Corlene again. My brother Dizagular from Coppersure crew and also alongside new producers such as Steve Macgregor who is Freddie McGregor’s son. He’s about 17 years old and is a very talented kid. He has the hottest riddims in dancehall to me right now. A lot of artists he’s put out from last year being the younger ones like Mavedo and these people. I have come to really enjoy working with such new energy and he is going to be one of the main elements on the album in terms of production. Also, we have been working with Left Side, who has been in my camp for a long time. He’s an artist, producer, comedian. He did some tracks for me on the first album so he’s someone who used to be my DJ. He used to spin records for me when I went on tour before I had a band. He really knows what we do and we have been working alongside him. Those are kinda the producers that I have been working with. but it’s mainly Jamaican producers and Jamaica production again.
Q: IS there a release date or is it too early to say?
SP: I don’t know the exact release date, but we are trying to have it come out in November. About middle or late November before the Christmas season.
Q: Are you planning on doing a tour down the line to promote the album?
SP: Yes, we always do. I have been promoting the album since the last one was out. The last single I had out was an international single, Give it Up to me. It was last August and we shot the video in August and the song run till about December or January. After that I put out a song called never gonna be the same, which didn’t really achieve the play on an MTV so to speak and was relatively a sad song and was a song about reminiscing about a brethren who had been shot to death and other people who in my life meant something to me personally or just even from afar. People who I miss. Since then I have been keeping ready and talking about this new album and work that I have been doing with these new producers. We have been doing tours going to different places and on these tours I do all the hits that people expect and I also do a segment in the middle where I do new songs and I get the people used to it. Whoever are my fans that do come to this events they have been getting promo on the album through me just doing these songs and explaining to them this is new songs and this is on the new album coming out later this year. As to a proper promo tour I think I am going to start that in September and I am going to certain parts of the United States especially Miami and New York first. These territories are always territories that bring me …help me to carry reggae music to a further distance throughout the globe. Recently, this year I have been to places like Israel for the first time been to Albania. The concerts are quite huge and there’s a lot of people who really didn’t know dancehall before, didn’t really know about. They knew about reggae for the last time they heard about it, it was probably the great Bob Marley.
Q: How were you welcomed over there?
SP: A lot of people. Thousands of people came to the concert. About 10,000 people in Israel and about 8,000 in Albania. I am telling you about these places because there are places that I didn’t expect myself to have that much listeners and that much people attend the concert where it’s only me performing on the show. No other hip-hop artist or anything like that. I also went to Nicaragua this year and it was another 10,000 crowd and it was the first time I’ve been there and it’s a territory that is very close to home. When you go to these places a lot of people from there ask these questions: how come you are coming to our country, no other artist comes here?’ Places like Nigeria, places like Nicaragua a lot of bigger artists hardly go to these places. Sometimes the accommodation and the different treatment that I get and having to do the promotion and what not. However, I am used to that and I am really trying to get people to see this next album coming up so I am going to the places that I have been before and I have never been before kicking down certain door, you know.
Q: So, when you go to places like these whether it’s Nigeria or Nicaragua, do you get to enjoy the cities treasures after your performances?
SP: In Nigeria we went to a certain beach which was off the island of the coast of Nigeria, and we got to enjoy the time there. Most of time when we go to these places we go to clubs is like an after party and we to interact with the people in that respect in that way. In Israel I did get to go to the wailing wall and went to Gethsemane and I went to the places where Jesus was supposed to have walked and different churches where Mary Magdalene the mother of Christ. All of these things was very important for me to see culturally. Same as when I went to Egypt I wanted to see the first great pyramids. To me, things like that is a great experience to just learn about yourself. To think that your grow up here in this day and time and you think that this is the best time to have grown in and when you look at stuff like that like the pyramids of Egypt and in Mexico, which I have been to also, it makes you think that for thousands of years we have been progressing technology wise and it makes me know a lot more about what has happened to their society and it can teach you what can happen to a great society and how it was built up and how it was also broken down. I like to do those things when I can. In Nicaragua as I said and in some other places usually it’s just a club we get into and see the people and say what’s up.
Q: Do you have any other artists featured on the album? I do know that you have a track which is currently floating around out there with Eve?
SP: The song with Eve I know that she did change the name of the song the other day. So it’s some other name but I don’t know if it became pick it up. It’s song that is produced by Swiss Beatz and herself and she sent me the track and she was like: I like you dancehall flavor and I like the style that you guys do so hit this riddim in the dancehall flavor. I have known her for quite a few years since about 2001 and we have been keeping in contact. Not very close contact but just saying what’s up to each other and always expressing love and I finally got to keep a closer contact with her last year around 2005 November, I think where the Trinity, my last album was just coming out. We really spoke in detail about what we wanted to do and she told me she was going to come back and do a record and take time from her acting career and do that. I was very pleased when she sent me the riddim to do. It’s kinda of a mixed up song. I am the kid in the song and I am telling her all my love I give it to you and she’s saying how much she believes and how much she loves but then I have other girls and that kinda of thing. It’s kinda like a love affair between me and her in the song.
Q: So any other artists on this new album?
SP: Yes, this new album I have a few people in the pipeline to do and I have about ¾ but I would rather keep that under wraps for right now. I can tell you that I have done a song with R Kelly and there’s a song with Pretty Ricky out there that you might know already called Push. You can look out for those projects as those will be coming out on the respective albums of those people. As to what I am doing on my album, there’s a little bit of secrecy going on right now as we are trying to write the right hook and I don’t want anybody to be like that is going to happen. Same way like with me and Eve, it was going on for years me and her trying to write the proper hook, the right song and it came to pass. It just happened to happen on her album. Other people I am involved with in talks right now about doing work we are going to try to make it happen.
Q: Now seeing that Trinity sold about 107,000 in the first week, are you nervous about the next album making an impact and what are your hopes for this one?
SP: The record music industry has changed so much times that I have been in it and I knew from when I was kid that the average person changes their focus or their job description at an average of about 7 times throughout their lifetime. I kinda look at it like that. Records are going to be sold in different ways right now and downloading is BIG thing. You can interview me and say do you think you are going to sell that much and I would say no, probably not in an album because downloading is taking a chunk out of it but we do still sell still in downloads and albums. Dutty Rock album there sold 6 million and the second time with Trinity we did break records and sell 107,000 but we sold 2.5 million and that was downloading getting more mainstream. When you check it out songs like Temperature did sell nos in the downloads or get busy was one of the first downloaded songs in the UK.. As long as you make good music, people are very supportive whichever way it is. Technology is here and I don’t run away from it I embrace it as much as possible. We will see how albums start to sell in the future. Some people begin their career as a salesperson and end up being a CEO of business. It really doesn’t make me nervous. I go towards my life looking towards the future with a great open mind.
Q: How much creative and artistic freedom do you have with your music?
SP: I do all my writing. My brother has done quite a bit of writing on this album. He helped me write songs in the past like Get Busy which went to number 1 on the Billboard chart. I have a chemistry with him. In terms of artistry there are some songs I have been conceptualizing this time around and I didn’t have a riddim track to do so with. Some songs just come like yr giving riddim by say a producer like Don Corlene and I would conceptualize writing what this track is saying to me. Recently I have been writing lyrics that are not fitting on anybody’s riddim track because I want them to build the riddim, for me. A lot of artists have people who write songs for them and they represent it properly. I usually stick to my writing and concepts and don’t really have a ghost writer.
Q: Let’s talk about reggatone. You have said in the past that you view it as cousin to reggae. Am I correct?
SP: If you listen to music that we produce in reggae dancehall music in 1991/92 you will hear reggatone. Songs such as dem bow from Shabba Ranks. That is the general riddim that reggae tone people have been using. It’s a pockamania riddim like a church type revival that came out of Jamaica. Like an Africanized church type. That comes from our menta yard. Menta yard was a music that was in Jamaica back in the 30’s/40’s that was hardly recorded. It evolved into music such as ska and ska evolved into rock steady and rock steady evolved into reggae and reggae has moved in time to become….it’s reggae because dancehall is when you deejay and rap so that kind of thing.
Q: Because it’s so commercially viable, do you have any plans to record a single with the greats of reggae tone like Daddy Yankee or Tego?
SP: If you check back on my album Dutty Rock you will see that I did a song with Tego Calderon called Punky which I did over in Spanish entirely and he done the remix for it. I have known Tego for a few years now but he considers himself more to be a rapper and he doesn’t want to be on those reggae riddims. Also daddy Yankee I did a song with him but it didn’t reach on his album and it didn’t reach on my album either. Maybe if you look on youtube you might be able to check it out. I know these cats very well. Music is music and just like I do a track with Eve I did a track with Carlos Santana. I have done it already. It’s just for them to put it and it would be on the album. I think that reggatone at this point in time is experiencing not as much success as it had been in the recent past. You have circles that music travels in and sometimes people say that one is big and this one is big but to me it is music that exists and I still work with it for sure.
Q: I read on your site that it took you 3 years to complete your 3 album, why does it take so long to work on an album and not to compare you but when you look at Rihanna churning an album out each year and you are doing yours every 3?
SP: because I am doing my thing from Jamaica which is a different process from the way she is doing her albums. She has gone straight into the American system which is she goes to New York, she goes to live in New York, and the proper producers are presented to her. I have to go and shift out the right things from Jamaica. There are many artists, many songs and many riddims to come out and not all of them are the best things and not many of them can represent Jamaica internationally and take our music to the level. People like Rihanna have gone to America and become American. The song Shut up and Drive which is latest single, has nothing to do with her Caribbean roots at all. Also it will be easy for me to do that but if I was to do that I think I will be leaving my county behind because the records that the company wants me to do are mainly hip-hop records and collaborations with different people and I try to uplift reggae music to the fullest and so I have to make sure that the stuff that I put out is the right thing. Also, it’s been quite a big year for me, and I went to many different territories and the song with that took me a on a tour. 2005/2006 and these things do take a lot of time so between trying to find the right vie from Jamaica and also in my whirl wide tours going to Indonesia, Nigeria and different parts of Australia it does take up time and I don’t really want to rush albums with sub-par production just because it’s the latest thing in Jamaica. I do wait and try to sift out the best things. In Jamaica today if I walk on the streets 10,000 people will come and give me 10,000 cd’s with 10,000 riddims on it and I have to sift through all of that and it takes a bit of time. Everybody has their own time and I do like to say that my life has been run by God’s speed and I give thanks and acts like Rihanna can see to do those, that’s great but I would love to uphold my country. She’s from Barbados. To me she’s a beautiful person and a beautiful girl but just don’t want to carry my career in that direction. I have seen other people try to do it and fail from Jamaica. I won’t call any names. I don’t want to be known as the hip-hop type collaboration person. I want to be known as the person for dancehall music which I am. Basically people can take a look at my track record and see. If you look at my schedule you will understand why it took 3 years to do that. The next album here has taken 2 years so I have been catching up on it but I don’ think I am going to put out an album every couple of months because my music is ….what can I say? I would like to call it a classic dancehall album. That is what I try to make which means that it hits in Jamaica, it hits in Caribbean circles, but it also does take it number 7 in the billboard charts. We be Burning, nos 9 on the Billboard chart, Break it Off with Rihanna nos 1 on the Billboard chart, Temperature nos 1 on the Billboard chart. I think that people need to look at the quality instead of the quantity. A lot of people have shit out there and every year their career might go down and mine doesn’t.
Q: It’s no secret that some of your music deals with the violence that goes on in Jamaica and when I look at movies like Belly, Shottas and Harder the Come with their violent themes and content, is it really reflective of what goes on in Jamaica?
SP: Definitely. Now there’s election time and I like to call it the two biggest gangs in the world. One side is wear green shirts and one side wear orange shirts. As a result of these two biggest gangs I don’t vote. A lot of people are upset with me two like my mother and my aunt and my teachers. People who consider that they have taught me well and that I need to put my vote in but it makes me upset because the first time I voted I was about 19 or 18 years old. I went to vote to say that I would love for my country to be governed by these people or that person to whatever and I went to vote and that evening I came home and this was the early ‘90’s and I remember being a kid in the late ‘70’s and early ’80.’s where and many people died to gun violence at the time so what I was 18 years and went home after voting and it was a good day and nothing happened where I was and I went home and saw a few people died. It made me upset and it made me feel like I was actually betting on people’s lives and so I didn’t like that fact. I never vote and I don’t know if I am going to vote soon like in the next couple of weeks. Yes, those movies reflect the lifestyle that is happening in certain parts of Jamaica for sure. There are a lot of fangs that have come out of Jamaica that are violent nature. When the economies of countries have gone up to a certain level and your country is a 3rd world country everybody in that country starts to feel like crabs in a barrel and everybody kinda wants to make their own way. And sometimes we all get in each other’s way and violence happens and it’s not something I am proud of at all which you might have known because I keep speaking up about it. It’s a very important issue that I think I need to speak on and this time around I have done a lot more songs about that. I have a song called sufferer which is really talking about the young kids. You have seen pictures of people in Somalia or in certain parts of Nigeria with big M16 bigger than them body. Do you remember the movie, Blood Diamond? And the kids have names like see you no mo. When you see me no more after that because I have a gun. These are the kinds of things I try to talk about in this song called Sufferer. It’s a song where I am talking on behalf of two different types of people and if you listen to the lyrics I am saying in my song: What my dreams and aspirations and what my goal is. Thinking of my own life and how I am going to progress and I see two kids with two guns shooting at each other and I stop in the middle of the song and say to them why are u doing it and they say it’s their fault and I am saying all the lyrics in the song but I am deejaying to myself. I am sufferer I have no money to get lunch I have no school lunch [see tape]. It’s to make people think about what is wrong and what is right in our society. I have a lot of friends from certain ghetto areas and this is what they expressed to me and that is how I can write a song like that. I also wrote a song called get it Right a song which I am saying where is all the love and people hustling every day we need a better life. It’s a song about how come people who govern the people of the earth why do see a kid who doesn’t have any chance in life and leave them out. I have another song called one life which is talking about many different things, but it does start by saying’ some boy don’t never learn and put down the gun cause nuff man skina burn but them still pick it up back like don give a fuck. That is the only thing that has been shown to them over the years. It’s either you’re at the top of your class and very educated which some people cannot afford to do and that is one song.
Q: Will the above songs be included in the album?
SP: The 3 I did speak about I have had positive feelings from the people….I have a meeting with people like my brother and my manager, people like that who don’t usually love me to say those things because people view me as …I am not supposed to be talking about gruesome things but they care album sales. This time around they have seen that I have done this songs really upbeat and really hyped. To the people that just want a hype vibe they can still listen to it even though it’s talking about sometimes very morbid subject, it does give light to these morbid subjects but it’s just a bumpy tune so there’s not much fight for these songs and you can look our for them in the album.
Q: Now what was it like growing up in Jamaica?
SP: It’s your home. It’s your place. It’s the land that your grandparents your forefathers walked on. The blood, sweat and tears are buried there. We have a saying in the Jamaica that you tie your naval strings when you are born. When you are born they take out the umbilical cord which is attached to your mum and they take it out and they will bury it under a tree. Basically, it says that is your land and that is where you always return to. That is what it is like to me. This is mine. Mine to uphold and mine to live my life here and mine find my own legacy and for people in the future to remember. I call myself a Jamaica so whether I have Chinese roots whether I have English blood, blood, African blood — m a mix up kid by the way so I have a lot of different. I have Portuguese and Jewish blood so I have many different types of blood in me but I am calling myself a Jamaica and this is what I like about it because it’s mine and it’s a beautiful place to call my own and to identify myself with. Secondly, it’s a topical beautiful place. It’s a very very exotic island for people to come and look at the hills and the seaside. In 5 mins you’re at the sea and in 5 mins from that you can be driving to a lush place that looks like a forest.
Q: Have you visited?
SP: Everyone. Name it I have visited for in the very first part of my career which started in 1995, I was touring in the Caribbean so I would do shows in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Bahamas, St Martins, Guadalupe, Martinique. I have been to all these places. There are probably two countries I have never been to. I have been to St Lucia. I have been to Belize which is not a Caribbean County and I have been to Costa Rica and Panama and Guyana. There are places here that I haven’t seen in those places and maybe I haven’t’ see the great places they have to offer but there’s Negril, Montego Bay, Portland which is more eco-tourism. Negril is more sunshine. And Portland is more of a relaxed type thing. My country is beautiful and Mandeville is very cool and people wouldn’t’ know there are very cool temperature places because it’s high up in the hills.
It’s the right sized country.
Q: I’ve noticed you are not tabloid fodder and there isn’t a lot of negative stuff written about so how do you keep yourself out of the tabloids?
SP: I am a positive person, and I don’t’ think many people can find a negative thing to say about me. If they want to say my music sucks they can’t. Everything else about me is a positive thing. You even ask a negative question about my country such as the violence and do the movies reflect this and yes and I tell positively what it is. People can’t say to me that I am trying to defend Jamaica, or I am this or I am that. I am more of a positive person so I don’t think it will come out in the press about me. I say to everybody I smoke weed and give me the trees make me smoke it. [laughs]. It’s just nothing to write about as there are some many other people doing crazy things and they love to write about them because I think those people are purposely having the negative aspects of them put out there. Some of them do it for publicity and some of them can’t help it but it’s not just something that is in me to have people be like this is negative about you. Mainly a person cannot find a thing about me that makes everybody go and buy their publication. When they put me in their publication people come and buy my album, so they look for other people who show these negative vibes. I keep myself out of that. I think I am little bit smarter than that mate.
Q: You have such a dynamic personality, and I know that you have been approached many times to act but you have always been adamant that your focus is music, will that ever change and will we see you on the screen some day?
SP: If I did then I wouldn’t be in studios every day and I would be looking for scripts every day. However, I am looking for a good script that I think I could represent. Maybe I could play the part of a villain one day or a part of lover in some movie one day. Yeah, it will be fun and it will cool to see myself act but.
People look at me and say you will be a good actor and I would love to see myself do that but it’s not my main focus, my main focus is to keep giving people music that they can bounce to and music they will appreciate for years to come and so that is what is really on my mind.
Q: And what would you want to be your legacy 40/50 years when you have retired from game?
SP: My legacy is already spoken for itself. I got to make dancehall music more international into the world where I can tour places like Egypt and Israel and Jordan and places like Indonesia. No dancehall artists that I know have been to these places other than Shaggy and even some of those places I have been to that he hasn’t. I think that my legacy is basically there so far. There’s a legacy that I have built. The most nos ones in dancehall career on the billboard charts. I have had 3 so far. I have had about 5 tunes in nos 10 about 20 of my songs have been under the top 20. You can count songs like Like Glue, I am still in Love and I mentioned temperature, get busy, we be Burning and that is legacy. No one has done that before. Also, having the most sales on the first day. That is another legacy so I think I have proven it. Whatever I do from now on I am going to try and expand on it. It just happened for me. I think whatever my legacy will be 50 years from now will be that. I don’t’ plan to take control of the world I am just doing it by God’s spiel and I give thanks.
