Sean Paul Salutes His Many Female Collaborators
Sean Paul, Dancehall’s most sought-after artist for duets, has paid homage to the scores of female singers and deejays with whom he has collaborated on songs over the years.
In a short video clip on Instagram, the Get Busy artist showed snippets from music videos featuring female superstars, which had his fans expressing amazement.
“Salute 2 all di amazin an talented women I’ve worked wid over di years! 👊🏿👊🏿,” Sean Paul captioned the post.
The first music snippet in the video featured How Deep Is Your Love, a duet with Kelly Rowland. That song was the fifth single from Paul’s fifth studio album Tomahawk Technique, which spent nine weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and peaked at No. 1.
The second snippet was Eve’s Give It To You on which he was featured. That song was released on January 1, 2007 and peaked at number 72 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
His third was Estelle’s Come Over, from the British artiste’s Shine. Come Over spent 18 weeks on the Billboard chart and peaked No. 56.
The fourth was Got To Love You featuring Alexis Jordan, the first single from the Tomahawk Technique album, and which was featured in the 2012 film Magic Mike. Got To Love you had peaked at No. 28 and spent six weeks on the Billboard chart.
Sean Paul has been a favourite of international artists who are seeking to add some Jamaican flavour to their songs. He has also collaborated with some of Dancehall’s hottest stars including Mr. Vegas, Sasha, Lady Saw, Beenie Man. His Dancehall collab Hot Gal Today with Mr Vegas, was one of the first collabs to propel him into the international spotlight.
He has featured on some of the biggest international hits in contemporary times. The 2016 single Rockabye with Clean Bandit and Anne-Marie was not only a massive hit, for the St. Andrew native, it was the UK’s Christmas Number one despite being released three months prior to the Yuletide season. The accompanying video has also garnered more than 2.5 billion views on YouTube.
Among his other, most notable collaborations with foreign artists are Baby Boy with Beyoncé in 2003, from her debut solo album Dangerously in Love. Back then, Baby Boy became Beyoncé’s longest-running No. 1 song on the US Billboard chart, spending nine weeks at that position.
In 2003, he collaborated with American singer Blu Cantrell on the remix of her Breathe single, which became a massive hit in Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom where it sat at the number one position for four weeks and became the eighth biggest-selling single of 2003 there.
Another mega-hit, was Cheap Thrills with Australian singer Sia in 2016. Cheap Thrills rode the charts globally and its accompanying lyric video has more than 1.6 billion views on YouTube.
Although not his biggest-selling collab, Sean Paul has long declared that his all-time favourite collaboration has been the 2006 hit single Break It Off with Rihanna. The song was recorded in Kingston and was produced by Don Corleon, and written by Sean Paul, Rihanna, Kirk “Koolface” Ford, Donovan Bennett and Don Corleon himself. The song peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, where it spent a total of 20 weeks. It copped a BMI Pop Award in 2007 and was certified gold in 2015 by the RIAA.
Unlike his last album Live N Livin, Paul’s upcoming album Scorcher will feature several female collaborators. They include Shenseea and Gwen Stefani on a single he described as a Reggae-rock tune called Light My Fire, and Sia on a track called Dynamite.
Dancehall artist Jada Kingdom, and Swedish singer Tove Lo are also set to be featured on the album, which has been delayed. The latest song to be released from the project is Only Fanz featuring Ty Dolla Sign.