by SCOTT C

Born to a Portuguese-Jamaican father and a Chinese-Jamaican mother, Sean Paul Henriques represents the next generation of dancehall artists making sure that the music gets to more people than ever. His chart topping "Gimmie the Light" has held on tight to its Billboard spot, while Sean executes all-important collaborations with artists like Busta Rhymes, King Jammy, Sly & Robbie, the Neptunes and most recently 50 Cent. Set to tour this year opening for Jay Z, 50 Cent and some undetermined hip hop bigshots, he promises pure "dutty rock" vibes riding on the now platinum success of his LP of the same name.

Teamed up with producer/manager and former Montrealer Jeremy Harding, Sean Paul has been raking in the accolades while keeping a steady flow of music coming from the source. Still based out of Kingston, Jamaica, he maintains close ties with his island home, where he happened to be when the Mirror spoke to him over the phone.

Mirror: First of all, what part of Kingston are you from?

Sean Paul: Uptown. Uptown and downtown are viewed as two different worlds, but it's all the same Jamaica rude bwoy. Let me put it like this. Uptown, people have a certain amount of material things, like a house or a car, but uptown ghetto too rude bwoy. Sometime Bounty Killer would come here and I hear him say with his own mouth, "This is not uptown. Everywhere in Jamaica a ghetto." And the reason him say that is because the government is something every man in Jamaica must live with. Uptown ghetto too.

M: Did you have to go downtown in order to make a name for yourself as a DJ?

SP: My base studio is uptown. King Jammy's studio is in Waterhouse, and Steelie and Clevie's studio is in New Kingston, so it's different places. It's not all uptown or downtown like a lot of people seem to think.

M: Has it been more important for you to do well in Jamaica than it has to do well in the rest of the world?

SP: It definitely is important to me. That's the real deal. If Jamaica don't accept you, your career is not gonna last very long. You won't do well abroad because people will realize you're not accepted in your hometown. This is the place that the music dwells. Kingston, Jamaica, is where the music originated, and the whole business revolves around it. If you're an artist that lives in the country parts, you still have to come to Kingston to record and to do work.

M: So when you're not touring, you spend most of your time in Kingston?

SP: Yeah, man. I'm here all the time. Last night I was in the studio 'til about 4 o'clock. Sizzla was there. Wayne Marshall was there. We're just chillin', building vibes for songs.

The Canuck connection

M: Can you tell me a little bit about how you hooked up with Jeremy Harding?

SP: He was born in Kingston and went to school in Canada. I think he was studying business, but switched to music. He became a DJ, playing on the radio in Montreal, and called himself Genius. His brother is the same age as me and I knew him from a long time ago. By the time I started to write my songs out fully around 1995, I was trying to do dub plates for sound systems, and Jeremy had moved back to Jamaica about a year or so before that. He had a small studio and he was doing ads for Jamaican radio. A friend asked me to do a dub plate for a party he was having, and instead of going to the dub studio, we went to Jeremy's place. That summer I did a lot of dub plates for Renaissance and Stone Love and it was all done at Jeremy's studio. I was still trying to get a foot in the door.

M: So what was your first official collaboration with Jeremy?

SP: My first song that got put out in Jamaica was a song called "Baby Girl" and that was Jeremy's production. I was down there every day when he was building the riddim, and at the time, he had three people on the track. I presented him with what I had written for the track and he told me it was the best thing I'd ever done. From there, the song became an underground hit in the Jamaican dancehall. Big song. Next, he produced the Playground riddim, and I came out with the song "Infiltrate" on that riddim, and it's history from there, man. After that, my career became so hectic that he became my manager, and that's 2 Hard Sound Studio's right there.

Dancehall ascendant

M: Do you look at dancehall/hip hop collaborations as necessary while dancehall creeps into pop territory?

SP: I've always seen the music as linked. It's not necessary, but it's evident that it must happen, I think. People like Heavy D, Shinehead, Busta Rhymes and Special Ed all have Jamaican roots. Our culture penetrates through the whole phenomenon which is rap culture anyway, so it's linked. KRS One and BDP always used to make hooks from things Jamaican people might say, because Jamaican people can run Brooklyn still! We used to keep up with Slick Rick, RUN DMC and the Fat Boys, but it wasn't until about four or five years ago that hip hop really hit Jamaica hard. Cable TV brought MTV and BET straight into the houses of these people, making hip hop the mainstream in Jamaica right now.

M: Can you see the direct results of that in the dancehall scene in Jamaica?

SP: Definitely. A lot of Jamaican DJs will use lyrics from popular hip hop songs. I for one don't really agree with that. I don't think that's right, but it did take a turn and go that way. There're a lot of hip hop hooks in dancehall right now. But it's been fused for a long time. Shabba and Johnny Gill. Super Cat and Kriss Kross. Sean Paul and 50 Cent. R Kelly has been doing a lot of things that sound like dancehall to me. I spoke to Timbaland and told him that Bubba Sparks' "Ugly" was a dancehall track. I did a song with Beyonce the other day, which is on a straight dancehall track. All of these artists are looking towards dancehall to give them a new edge, because hip hop has been done.

M: What do you mean by, "It's been done?"

SP: Little X said it to me at the video shoot. "Dancehall is the next hip hop." He said that when hip hop started it was all about the culture, the dances, the clothes, the DJ, the MC, the music. Now there's kids doing their version of this thing that spawned from our generation, and it can get a little monotonous for some of us, y'know. People are looking for something different, and dancehall music, language and culture can stand on its own in 2003.

With Baby Yu, Chhaya and Kwite Sane at Metropolis on Sunday, May 18, 7:30pm, $52, and at Dome on Monday, May 19, 8pm, $40

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