Talk Dutty To Me
A multi-million making, marijuana puffing performer who still lives with his mum? Hattie Collins meets Sean Paul and discovers there’s much more to the man than dutty dancehall.
October 2004. It’s 2.30 am and the air in Kingston is no less oppressive now than it was 12 hours ago; a woozy heat bears down heavily, mingling with a thick stew of chattering crickets and the intoxicating scent of sticky weed. A casually dressed, slightly built man named Sean Paul Henriques rests against a mango tree, inhaling deeply on his sickly-sweet smelling spliff. “We have a big murder toll and it’s not us bringing the guns down here,” sighs the dancehall singer, known to millions as Sean Paul, as he takes a break from writing his new album to survey the city lights splayed before him. “There’s thousands of guns here and from where? Everyone has guns now. To me, that's very violent living.”
From this angle, high up in the hills, Jamaica’s capital city looks almost idyllic. A few miles further downtown, in the garbage-strewn, shack-lined streets of Seaview Gardens, it is of course a different story. “It’s gang war, politics and drugs – that’s why killing go on here. The violence here is ridiculous, the situation has really gotten out of control,” Sean surmises. “Most third world governments aren’t invited to G8 summits to help make decisions. Their job is to take care of this chicken coop and to try and keep law and order before they return to the coup as one of the chickens. Many years ago they started to give out guns in the community,” he explains. “It’s really a badness thing to stay in power as long as possible to scrape as much as possible. These people keep the wealth for them and their friends and so a lot of poor people are left to fend for themselves. It’s living like crabs in the barrel.”
Eleven months later and a slightly less stoned but still as socially-aware Sean Paul is found playing the pop star on the streets of New York City. Here to promote, the fruits of his late-night labour, new album Trinity, Paul pauses briefly to soak up the midday Manhattan sun. Dressed in Gucci shades and trendy £200 Bathing Ape trainers he waits for the arrival of his blacked-out Escalade to chauffeur him to the nearby MTV studios. “You can’t be hidden away with the hat pulled low all the time,” he announces, apparently oblivious to the stares of starstruck passers by. “Gotta get that vitamin D while you can.” While his feet maybe firmly on American soil, his mind, apparently, is still in JA. “I miss the day-to-day happenings, but I try to keep as close as possible by phoning a lot,” he says, looking longingly at his swanky Sidekick mobile-cum-computer. “Even when I’m not there, I’m there.”
Sean Paul loves Kingston almost as much as he loves weed. Which is a lot. His commitment to both is found on Trinity, so named because it is his third LP, it took three years to record, it has three moods, it is released in September (which is the ninth month and divisible by… ok, slightly thin that one, agreed) and, most significantly to Sean, it was recorded in the, as he puts it, Third World. The latter is the most surprising three-age, especially considering his star-studded second album was recorded in both JA and the USA. Released in 2002, Dutty Rock, boasting chart toppers Gimme The Light (homage to weed), Like Glue (homage to man juice) and Get Busy (homage to the laydeez) featured the likes of Beyoncé and Busta Rhymes and sold some six million copies worldwide. But rather than re-treading the path of packing his new album with popular American performers and booty-bouncing club-bangers, the former gourmet chef and ex-water polo player decided to stick to his roots. “I went to Miami to work with The Neptune’s and did demo’s with Ashanti but those songs are still sitting there,” he shrugs. “It just didn’t feel right. I decided to give the shine back to Jamaica,” he says of working with young Kingston kids like Don Corleone and Snowcone. While he’s been cautious enough to include some sure-fire smash singles, Trinity sees Paul lean further toward a more traditional digital-based dancehall and rootsy, one drop reggae, currently enjoying a renaissance thanks to Damien Marley’s Welcome To Jamrock. It is those concerns of which he spoke of in Kingston – crime, corruption and the recent murder of his friend, the musician Daddigon - that most powerfully impact the album, particularly on the Daddigon dedicated Never Gonna Be The Same. There are still Mr Loverman lyrics to be found, but lead single We Be Burnin’ is less a reference to tanning Tenerife style, more a plea to legalise weed in order to stabilise Jamaican economy and increase tourism. “As well as making people party, I want to say something, you know,” he says simply.
The album’s different dynamics coexist happily within itself and, like the music he makes, Sean Paul too is a man of multiple parts. As a teenager struggling to make his mark in dancehall, the ex-water polo player was nicknamed ‘Uptown’ Sean Paul, referring to the posh area of Norbrook where he was raised. His Afro-Caribbean/ Portuguese/Jewish father, Garth, was a notable swimmer, as was his Jamaican/Chinese/ English mother Fran, now a successful painter in her own right. Not usually the CV boasted by dancehall artists, but Paul’s home-life wasn’t perfect. Prep school and polo played a part, yet he admits to fighting depression as a teen when Garth was imprisoned for six years on drug smuggling charges. “It was hard. I was 13 years old and I wanted to have my father around to ask certain questions,” he recalls. “But he wasn’t there so my moms had to be my father to me. It was really important and cool of her to play that role and to do it so well.” He remains close to his mother; still lives with her, his brother and grandmother in a Kingston suburb. “I have a responsibility to them,” he explains. “It’s Jamaica, it’s not always that safe.”
Later in the New York night, it’s show-time as Sean shares the stage with a number of his contemporaries at a sold-out gig. P. Diddy showboats backstage as Vybz Cartel, Sizzla and Elephant Man entertain 4000 Jamaican-flag waving fans with a back-catalogue of big hits. Paul, on the other hand, decides to play only new material. “They’ll probably just stare at me like ‘wah’?” he frets beforehand, but he needn’t worry; the new material goes down a storm.. “I feel like I’m in the pop world but I’m a dancehall artist and that’s my music,” he argues of balancing international adoration with the old ‘keeping it real’ conundrum. “This music is the everyday ideas, problems, likes and dislikes of the Jamaican youth. But now the world is paying so much attention it has become pop in that it’s popular,” he grins with real glee. “That’s crazy, right?”
As dancehall’s reputation has increased, so has scrutiny of its occasionally homophobic lyrics. It’s sad to see that one of the evening’s biggest songs belongs to T.O.K’s gay-bashing Chi Chi Man. This is something that annoys Paul almost as much as Gay Rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. “Sometimes people need to free up their thinking,” he tuts, annoyed. “Right now my question to these dudes is ‘Why say it so many times?’ It’s really hurting the music on a monumental level.” While American’s seem pretty non-plussed, certainly if tonight is any example, many UK concert promoters have been pressured by gay rights groups to cancel gigs by particularly offending artists like Sizzla. “To me you should be smart enough to keep onto your career,” he says sagely. “If you want to be on MTV and BET, why keep doing it?”
Even when slightly stressy, Paul is really rather relaxed, thanks largely to Mr Marijuana. Sean smokes the herb whenever he can. One particularly memorable moment was on top of the Pyramids in Egypt, although he’s careful to respect local law. “It’s still illegal and you can get locked up…” he cautions. “But if no ones about and I think I can get away with, yeah, I’ll burn some,” he laughs wickedly. He could and in fact does, talk at length about what makes good weed, but marijuana and music aren’t the be all and end all for Sean Paul. The one-time chauffeur loves Egyptology – “those kids knew about friggin right angles,” he marvels, and he still likes to cook occasionally. Tonight, after the show, it’s party time with P. Diddy but when all is said and done, home is definitely where his heart is at; gang, political and gun problems regardless. “I can sit forever under the mango tree and just think ‘It’s a nice day,’ you know,” he says, back in the peace and quiet of night-time Kingston. “This fame thing? It’s not all about that to me. If I can get people to hear what I have to say,” he concludes. “That matters more than anything.”
Trinity is out now on Atlantic Records.
A version of this first appeared in the Guardina Guide on September 24th 2005
Pic of Sean by me taken @ Sheraton Lobby, Bahamas
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