Sean Paul On Poor Album Sales: “I Do Care—But I Don’t Take It To Heart”

Jamaican superstar Sean Paul says he isn’t the least bit discouraged by the fact that the numbers on his recent projects are not so hot.

Just before the release of his latest project Scorcha, the Temperature deejay sat down with Zeze Millz for her online show, where he was asked about his motivation for releasing albums and whether he still cares about the sales numbers after almost 30 years in the business.

“I do care—but I don’t tek it to heart if a song I feel like is really hot don’t go,” Paul retorted in a humble manner, in the interview published on Wednesday.

“I just want to record still. I’ve proved myself to myself, and so right about now it’s about partaking in the history, especially of Jamaican music that’s why when the pandemic hit I had nothing to do. I travelled a lot, I toured a lot. So I was like, you know what, this gives me perfect time. I’m always complaining. I tour too much [and] doe have studio time so wi go in the studio,” he added.

Released on May 27, Paul’s Scorcha opened at No. 6 on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart after selling 1,700 equivalent album units from sales and streaming in the United States, including 600 copies.

Unfortunately for the 49-year-old veteran Dancehall act, the reception for his last two full-length albums has been similar.

His seventh album Live N Livin peaked at No. 9 on the chart with 1,000 units sold during its first week of release in March 2021.  His sixth album, Full Frequency, debuted at No. 1 with 2,160 units in 2014, according to the Jamaica Observer.

On the other hand, Paul’s Grammy Award-winning and 2X Platinum Dutty Rock was No. 1 with 65,000 first-week units in 2002.  His third album, The Trinity, had debuted at No. 1 with 107,000 units, and was later certified Platinum in the US for sales exceeding 1 million units.  He has also had 19 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, the last being 2016’s Rockabye with Clean Bandit and Annie-Marie, and Cheap Thrills with Sia.  No Lie with Dua Lipa (2017) did not enter the Hot 100, but it has become his biggest song as lead artist.

Regardless of whether his last two projects were hits or misses, Paul noted that he is pleased with the versatility he delivered with them.

“We did two albums last year: Live N Livin’ that was up for the Grammy and that’s more hardcore Dancehall oriented,” he said.  “The reason why that’s like that is because just in the mood for it. I’ve done many years of the collabs you know the Clean Bandits and Anne-Marie, you know. Those songs are awesome but I just kinda feel like I personally was lacking the real vibes to sing back certain songs like that. So, we did Live Livin’ and it had established artists like Buju Banton, Busy Signal, Junior Gong, and then it had the younger cats like Govana, Skillibeng, Masicka, Intence,” the We Be Burnin’ entertainer explained.

“Scorcha was more of an international approach to production….to answer the first part of your question, (I) just keep working and whatever sounds like this can be a big song this summer, or not just this summer, but really fits into the musical atmosphere nowadays then I work with it.”

The collabs on the album include Ty Dolla $ign, Pia Mia, Jada Kingdom, Sia, Gwen Stefani, Shenseea, Tove Lo, Stylo G, and Damian Marley.

The Dancehall stalwart further spoke on the challenges of keeping up with a dynamic music industry, especially with the rate at which more up-and-coming acts are bursting onto the scene.

“It can be, because Dancehall market is a niche thing and things happen in there that change totally the projectory of how the music was going or whatever, on the daily. There’s new artists there and is like they come, and put their installments there and everybody’s like “that’s the new thing!”…I find that some of these companies they don’t really keep up like that so their idea of what might be cool now, we’re like “but that’s old,” he said.