Sean Paul helped bring dancehall to the masses. With a new tour, he's ready to do it all over again
It has been 21 years since Sean Paul’s dancehall anthem “Get Busy” topped the Billboard Hot 100 and introduced new audiences to his Jamaican genres
LOS ANGELES (AP) — It has been 21 years since Sean Paul's dancehall anthem “Get Busy” topped the Billboard Hot 100 — which means “Get Busy” is finally old enough to hear “Get Busy” at the club.
“It's changed for me now," Sean Paul told The Associated Press over Zoom from his studio in Jamaica, reflecting on the song's legacy. “Because when I say, ‘Get busy,’ I'm telling the kids to do their homework or clean stuff up.”
In the years since Paul helped introduce dancehall riddims and reggae to new audiences, he's released six ambitious albums, including two straight out of the coronavirus pandemic: 2021's “Live n Livin” and 2022's “Scorcha.” He's become a father and a devoted husband. (The “Jodi” in the “Get Busy” lyric “Shake dat ting, yo, Donna Donna / Jodi and Rebecca”? That's his wife.) And his ambition to make joyful, danceable music has never wavered.
“It's a timeless piece for me,” he says of “Get Busy.” “Every time I try to do a song, I try to put the same butterflies that I had in my belly when I was flirting with the first girl on the first dance floor I went to. It's just a feeling.”
