INTERVIEW WITH SEAN PAUL

SP = Sean Paul

S = James G. Spady

S: What led you to do the song with DMX and Mr. Vegas in the Belly film?

SP: You know the song named "Deport Dem"? That tune was done with a producer named Tony Kelly. He's been in the business quite some years. He wrote some big tunes with Supercat. I did that song for him, "Deport Dem," and he liked the voice.   He put out the song and it started doing well in Jamaica. He had a link from a long time ago with Hype Williams. You know Snow? Snow did a big tune with Tony Kelly back in the day, like early '90s. Hype Williams did that video for him. I don't know how that came about but they linked on it. And  he said, "Whenever you have  something going I'll be there." So Hype called him up when he was coming down to Jamaica to do the movie, Belly.  He's like, "I'm doing a movie and I want Dancehall tracks on it." So Tony was like, "The two new guys who are running the place right now are Sean Paul and Vegas." So, we just linked up like that. He called me. There was a beach dance where DMX appeared at.

Nobody knew he was going to be there.

S: What beach was that?

SP: Ft. Clarence Beach.

S: Ft. Clarence, where they had Re-Loaded, right?

SP: Actually, it was Fully Loaded. I think it was. I didn't go to that one. It was on a Sunday night. I heard DMX went and busted the place up. Him saying, "Where my dawgs at?" And people started getting hyped and all of that. The next day, Tony Kelly called me on the phone and was like, "Yo, you doing a song with DMX and Vegas. Come over here now!" I'm like, "Let us reach over there." I was over there the next morning. Me and Vegas were writing a tune. DMX came in and was like, "This is what I have." We just kinda collaborated it.

S: When X came in did he already have that "Boom Boom Boom?" Did he have those lines already written?

SP: Yeah, he had, "Here comes the boom" as a hook.

S: Had you and Vegas heard the hook prior to going into the studio?

SP: Nah. We were actually writing a Girl's tune. And I was like, "DMX ain't gonna do a girl's tune." I was like, "You listen to the guy? This is what he talks about. He's not going to talk about girls all the time like our Dancehall artists used to be doing." So we were writing a girl's tune and he came and he was like, "This is my hook: 'Here comes the boom.'"  He was working on his thing. So we switched up some of our lyrics and then started to write a Bad Man tune.

S: What was it like working with DMX in the studio? How was working with X different than working with Dancehall artists?

SP: It's different working with him than dancehall artists because the community in Jamaica is smaller. Everybody there knows everybody. You know what I mean? So with DMX, he came into the studio; he kinda was quiet at first. He vibed, you know what I mean?

S: When you saw the movie Belly, what was your reaction?

SP: It was a great thing to see all of those rap stars in a movie like that. It reminded me of back in the day when I saw Krush Groove, Beat Street, and stuff. It reminded me of that, but it was done in more of a modern-day style with different techniques.

S: Do you feel they captured Dancehall music well in that film?

SP: Yeah, they did. I think they did. Everybody in the world got it. All he did was put on a small dance and then film it. People came in there and were on the stage and he told them to stop a couple of times, which is not really what happens in real dancehall but people were dancing and smoking like a normal dancehall.

S: Now even at that time you had built a reputation in Jah Land. Why did it take you so long to put your first album out?  You've been on Mixtapes down in Treelawney from way back.

SP: Definitely. I've been in the business for quite a few years. I was still in school the first few years. I was trying to take it, not slow, but I had to learn a couple of things.

S: What did you learn in the first two or three years, man?

SP: That music is beautiful but the music business stinks.

S: How did you learn that?

SP: Basically, it's what Bob Marley talked about, "A Rat Race." And there's a lot of people in the business who ain't there for the love of the music but, "I do the product to sell." They're there for the money.

S: There for the money?

SP: Yeah, they're there for the money. It causes a conflict between things because they want the loochie [i.e. money]. They want the money so dem gon go for it no matter what's in the way. If I'm in the way, they don't really care. They mean business. You know what I mean? Or if I can help them to get there, they'll step on me, too. In Dancehall, it's like a tuff thing right now. Every man has to know what it takes to be on the stage, to be off the stage, to be in the studio, and then there is all of the politics behind that with the different producers wanting this or that. In Jamaica, how the music business should be run, it doesn't always run that way.

S: What led to the whole Dutty Cup Crew? How and when did it get started?

SP: It got started in 1995. That was the summer that I first started to go to Jeremy Harding's Studio. He's the producer that started producing the dub plates. That's how people used to get popular. You know what I mean? In those days, you became known as a Dub artist. At first what happens is you do a song like a solo. One of your biggggg songs. You do a big song about them.

S: So you put the name of the Sound System group in the song?

SP: Yeah, they cut it on a dub plate and they play it at the dances. That gives the DJ more notoriety, more credibility. Like, he's been played on a dub plate song. It's an underground scene right there. It's not on the radio and it's not anywhere else. But some of these songs are killin it. Everybody goes to the dance and they're hearing it. They are hearing more and more about that person or this person. That's what happened with me. Producers get to hear me that way. That's how you get introduced as a DJ and then when dem see you again, they're like, "Ah yeah, Sean Paul." That's the buzz right there

because that's the underground. So we started to do some Dub Plates up there and a group of yute just start to link. So came Mussy Kid, Mr. Chicken, Looga Man, and Kid Kurup.

TO CHECK OUT THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW, GET YOUR COPY OF "THA GLOBAL CIPHA: HIP HOP CULTURE AND CONSCIOUSNESS"….

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