He’s like, “Your song is being played 42 times a week. Jay-Z showed me how much time my own record was playing against his song at that time, “Big Pimpin’”, and it was a huge song – it was getting played about 43 times a week in New York. The same week, I had a meeting with Jay-Z and Roc-A-Fella. I sang one song for six weeks and then was like, “I really have to get more songs.” I went to his studio and he was like, “Why don’t you come to this open mic at this restaurant called Raphael’s?” Everyone there was pop or rock oriented and then I’d come on and people would be like, “Who’s this guy?” – it was just not my crowd. I had a bredren called Rupert Bent, who plays with Third World band. The first time you performed in front of a live audience.

I honestly just wanted to write a song that Jamaicans would throw their hands up in the air to and go “Bo!” That was my dream.

What did you want to achieve when you first started in music? I started to figure maybe I’m not the producer, maybe I’m the artist. She bought this keyboard with a crack in it and I’d make people’s rhythms or try to re-create the dancehall songs.Īt 17 or 19, I’d go to studios Cell Block 321 and Mixing Lab and I would be a fly on the wall, beating my voice or Bounty Killer telling stories outside of the tours he’d been on. I saw Steely & Clevie on the TV explaining how to use computers to produce and I’d bother my mum every weekend, like, “Mum, can we go to the market? They’ve got a keyboard over there.” She was freaking out, but she tried to encourage me. Michigan & Smiley was the first time that I heard dancehall music they were speaking in a way that I spoke with my friends – broad patois. The first time you realised you wanted to be an artist…

Sia!” Mum introduced me to The Beatles, Cat Stevens, Abba, this was a new thing for me, in my later years, to have her telling me about an artist. I’ve only heard one song from him,” and she was like, “No, man. I was arguing with her: “Psy is a great artist from South Korea. She was like, “Sia is a great artist,” but I thought she meant Psy. My management asked if I would consider doing a song with Sia and at that time I’d just been musically schooled by my mum. Sean Paul: We’ve never met in person, which is crazy.

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