Sean Paul Says Skillibeng Should Ensure Jamaicans Are Recruited To His Team

Dancehall superstar Sean Paul recently shared some keys to success and recommended some areas for improvement which he says could help in Whap Whap artist Skillibeng’s ascension to superstardom.

During an interview on the Let’s Be Honest Podcast, with host Jaii Frais, the Dynamite artist was asked about his views on the state of Jamaican music, and to zone in on his thoughts on Skillibeng.

Sean began his analysis by making it clear that: “I wouldn’t ever take away from people doing greatness fi demself and dem people around dem”, before outlining the areas for improvement.

“I want see him (Skillibeng) get more professional pan stage,” Sean Paul said, in making his first point.

Secondly, Sean recommended that the St. Thomas native make it a point of his duty, to ensure that his Jamaican compatriots are employed to make up the majority of the team around him, using his modus operandi as an example.

“Like yuh see how me trod, I trod with mainly a Jamaican crew.  There is one memba a mi band born in America, and I like to try to say me employ (Jamaicans).  Suh, mi DJ, mi sound people dem, everybody is Jamaican-oriented.  Even management-wise.  I went to a point where I had a foreign manager at one point, and we had growing pains so much that I was like mi a feel like mi a build some odda place,” the St. Andrew native explained.

“I find somebaddy weh mi know, have di links the brainpowers and mi brodda and Steve have always been on management.  An mi bring Julia in too because she is Jamaican.  Suh when mi si Skilli a do, mi waa si him a run wid Jamaican deejay, dem suppm deh,” he added.

The Grammy Award winner also said that he is hoping to see more variety in the musical content from Skilli, with whom he had collaborated, along with Masicka for the song Everest, which was featured on his Grammy-nominated album Live N Livin.

“And I want to see more versatility.  I want to hear some songs where it is not always in the same style.  That style is hot right now, but I want see some different style; I want some different topics,” he stated.

Three weeks ago, in an interview with Vibe Magazine, Sean Paul had bemoaned the tendency of upcoming artists to focus solely on violent themes in their songs, and not make efforts to start diversifying their catalogs, even though Jamaican music is a melting pot of various moods, topics and lyrics, even those considered belligerent.

Prior to that, in April this year, Skillibeng had sought to explain the strategy behind his ongoing recording of Nonsense Songs, as opposed to more substantial songs such as Mr. Universe, pointing out back then, that he was simply giving fans the music that they appear to crave more.

The 25-year-old had told Ras Kwame of London’s Capital XTRA that while he had been doing what he described as “good music”, people are gravitating more to his songs which have been injected with nonsense syllables and unintelligible phrases, like his latest release, Whap Whap which featured F.S. and was later remixed with French Montana and Fivio Foreign.

“I’ve been doing good music.  I have so much good music that people stop embracing.  Why you stop embracing the good music then?  I have so much good music.  Embrace the good music then.  It is the exact point need to be made bro because why don’t you embrace the music?  Why do I do Crocodile Teeth (its) at 35 million and Mr. Universe is like stuck at 10 million?” Skilli had lamented.

“Missa Universe is so impactful bro.  So powerful with so much knowledge and a man mean fi tell me seh, a dem song deh mi fi write everyday.   A bet seh him nuh learn everything inna Missa Universe yet.  Not even about learning the lyrics – understanding what I’m saying in that song.  They don’t bro!  But when man seh ‘whap whap whap’, today they say yow it’s rubbish…,” he had added.