Sean Paul Celebrates 20 Years of Dutty Rock

When Sean Paul released Dutty Rock in 2002, the album served to bring the growing popularity of dancehall to a global audience. The timing of its release was cosmic. Built on intoxicating riddims and elements of R&B and hip-hop, tracks like "Gimme the Light" and "Like Glue" helped shape pop music and spurred a new wave of dancehall.

Twenty years later, the album's influence can still be heard on dance floors worldwide. But what seemed like overnight success took years for Paul to cultivate.

"Back in the day, I was going to different studios all over and not really considering an album," Paul says about his earlier days recording in Jamaica. "I had a lot of singles to pick from. A lot that hadn't come out and some that came out already, and that's how the album came together."

Born Sean Paul Ryan Francis Henriques in Kingston's uptown district, he was raised in a prominent family of champion swimmers. He swam for the Jamaican national water polo team from ages 13 to 21 until he decided to pursue a career in music full-time. Inspired by Super Cat, Shabba Ranks, and Bob Marley, he was able to score a few radio hits in Jamaica and the U.S. in the late '90s, including his contribution to the Bookshelf Riddim compilation, "Deport Them," off his debut album Stage One. The song peaked at number 80 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs in 2000.

Although his music saw a modicum of success in the U.S. and Jamaica, Paul still hustled at the studio to make ends meet. During a serendipitous session, desperate for money to fix his car, he begrudgingly accepted an advance lower than his usual rate to record a club anthem that would become his biggest hit to date.

"The producer told me he had $800, and I told him, 'Nah, I usually do it for $1,000.' And then something happened to my car that week, and I had to pick up the phone like, 'Yo, you still got the eight bills?'" he recalls with laughter. "So I went to the studio, knew the riddim already because it was sent on a CD. I had the melody but no lyrics, so I thought, 'Let me talk 'bout what I did in New York last week. Let's go.' It was mostly a freestyle."

Paul is describing the origin of "Gimme the Light."
Released in Jamaica in 2001 and internationally in 2002, "Gimme the Light" (originally titled "Give Me the Light") caught like wildfire on international airwaves. It landed at number seven on Billboard's Hot 100 and climbed to the top 20 positions in the U.K., Netherlands, and Canada. The track's catchy chorus — "Jus gimme the light and pass the dro/Buss anotha bokkle a Moët" — combined patois with hip-hop slang on the Black Shadow-produced "The Buzz" riddim, transporting listeners into a familiar and foreign escape. It didn't matter if listeners could translate his patois; they understood just enough to relate to Paul's club vices.

It was a genius formula for radio play.

"I realized people could feel that vibe when they heard it. They wanted to have the same party experience," Paul told the Guardian earlier this year.

Birthed out of the sound-system culture in Jamaica, dancehall got its name from the local dance halls in Kingston's inner-city areas, where DJs would create new lyrics over riddims, Jamaican patois for rhythms formed from a mix of reggae, rocksteady, and ska. The technique, similar to rapping, became known as "toasting," and the format not only influenced rapping during hip-hop's early days but also characterized and differentiated dancehall as a subgenre of reggae. Reggae's four-beat rhythms and socially conscious lyrics were replaced with bass-heavy riddims and salacious lyrics about sex, weed, and violence.

Throughout the 1980s and '90s, a cluster of Jamaican dancehall artists crossed over to the States. Yellowman, Shabba Ranks, Supa Cat, Bounty Killer, Beenie Man, Buju Banton, Tanya Stephens, and Patra became some of the genre's biggest names. But it wasn't until the 2000s that dancehall made its way into the pop-culture lexicon, mainly due to Shaggy and Sean Paul's back-to-back hits.

"It commercialized dancehall in a way that had never happened before. Sean Paul was not only selling records, but he was everywhere," says Ron Telford, managing partner of Creative Titans, a Miami-based hybrid music company that manages Caribbean and Latin artists.

"Gimme the Light" was the catalyst for a multimillion-dollar deal between Paul's label, VP Records, and Atlantic Records right before the release of Dutty Rock. By 2003, he was a household name after releasing hits like "Get Busy" and "Like Glue." Thrust into stardom, he became a sought-after collaborator for some of the biggest artists at the time. He was tapped by Blu Cantrell for her 2003 single "Breathe," he was featured on Busta Rhymes' "Make It Clap" remix, and the pair joined forces again on "Gimme the Light (Pass the Dro-Voisier Remix)." He also caught the eye of a Destiny's Child member on the precipice of her solo career. Beyoncé recruited Paul for "Baby Boy," an R&B and dancehall-tinged song from her debut album, Dangerously In Love. The Scott Storch-produced song went on to earn both artists the top position on the Billboard Hot 100 for nine consecutive weeks.
"My career was popping off, and dancehall was getting a huge response," Paul says. "And Beyoncé was stepping out in terms of doing her solo album. The both of us were on a good run, and she reached out with a song. I was pleasantly surprised it was a dancehall collab. I did the first part in Jamaica, and the second verse, I met her in Miami. We created history. A big, bad sexy song, and we reached number one."

He returned to his reggae roots and slowed things down on "I'm Still in Love With You," featuring Sasha. The song interpolates Alton Ellis' "I'm Still in Love With You Girl" and is arguably one of his most popular music videos helmed by the early-2000s filmmaking savant, Director X. The song's intimate vibe between lovers also inspired one of his favorite tracks on the album.

"There was one day I couldn't find anything to sing, and I was really uninspired and depressed," he explains. "I was in Miami with my girlfriend at the time, who's my wife now. We were in the room, and I was playing the riddim and smoking, and she just took off all her clothes and started jumping on the bed," he adds with a laugh as his eyes widen under his dark shades. He begins to sing the chorus of "Get Busy" before adding, "Her nakedness on the bed inspired it."

In 2004, he earned a Grammy for "Best Reggae Album" and was nominated for "Best New Artist." Twenty years and many accolades later, Paul hasn't lost his momentum. His eighth album, Scorcha, released earlier this year, was nominated for a Grammy for "Best Reggae Album." He's crossed genres, collaborating with a diverse array of artists like Rihanna, Sia, Dua Lipa, Clipse, and Major Lazer, and he's become the lionized face of early-2000s dancehall. He ushered in a new wave of Jamaican artists, including Elephant Man, Kevin Lyttle, Vybz Kartel, Gyptian, and Mavado, and set the foundation for dancehall to become one of Jamaica's biggest cultural exports.

"It opened up dancehall to a different audience and eyes. Before that, it would be like only one dancehall song a year that took off in the United States," Telford says. "It was monumental for us. Because of the success of Sean Paul, a lot of these dancehall artists were getting signed. There hasn't been a movement like that in dancehall since."

Though the Dutty Rock period remains unmatched, Sean acknowledges the newcomers making the genre their own. He names Shenseea and Skillibeng as some of his favorites out of the current dancehall landscape, and he says he's excited to see more women carry the mantle and put their spin on the genre. But he's also aware of how international artists have used dancehall's sonic signatures without giving credit to the culture that birthed the sound.

"It's a bit fucked up. I find there are artists that utilize the sound, whether they know it or not, but it should be said this is dancehall because it got to a point I won an American Music Award," he says. "It's spawned reggaeton, the current Afrobeat sound, so I need those accolades, and I need them right now for the genre. The pop artists that do it — Shawn Mendes, French Montana, Swae Lee, even that kid, Lil Nas X, and his song 'Montero' — those are dancehall beats. It needs to be said, and more people should be saying it other than me."

When Paul isn't advocating for dancehall or pulling an all-nighter at the studio, the 49-year-old father of two says he's grateful for Dutty Rock's legacy and how it cemented dancehall as a global phenomenon. The album remains on rotation at parties, clubs, and celebrations worldwide.

"It's an amazing feeling to know people rated the sound so much it's the most popular groove out there now," Paul says. "Back then, we thought not much people was listening, and now I see it in ads, hear it on the radio, and see it in commercials. It's amazing."