Sean Paul, known for his songs that typically cater to women, found himself channeling his inner bad boy when Will Smith called him to collaborate on a track for “Bad Boys: Ride or Die.” Smith sent Paul the song with his own part already recorded and requested that Paul add a verse. “I usually don’t do badman lyrics, I’m more for the ladies, but the movie is called ‘Bad Boys,’” the Grammy-winning reggae-dancehall artist told The Hollywood Reporter. “The track was dope and it’s definitely reflective of Run DMC, [LL Cool J’s] ‘Rock the Bells,’ old-school hip-hop with that energy.” Smith and Paul join forces on the beat-laden track “Light Em Up,” one of the 10 songs on the film’s soundtrack, which debuted with a strong $56.5 million at the domestic box office.
Paul, 51, reminisced about meeting Smith earlier in his career: first in the early 2000s when he worked on the soundtrack for “Shark Tale,” which featured Smith as the lead character, and later backstage at one of his concerts. “I was in awe that Sir Will Smith was there. He accomplished a lot at a younger age and led a lot of people down a path in terms of inspiring us, other artists, and other younger producers, him and Jazzy Jeff,” Paul said. “I look up to him in terms of being a mogul and a music person for a long time.” The artist behind hits like “Get Busy” and “Gimme the Light” added that collaborating with Smith nearly 25 years after releasing his first album makes him feel proud and relevant. “I was very happy to know that basically I’m still considered someone with hot music,” Paul explained. “It’s awesome because this is a fickle business. Music is my life, and I put my emotions into the music. But the business, I use my head with, and you have to know that sometimes your time is a different time. And for my time to be still here, that is an awesome thing.”
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Smith, who debuted in the rap duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince with the album “Rock the House” in 1987, has had a successful career with hits like “Summertime” and “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” the latter winning the first-ever rap Grammy in 1989. Going solo, Smith topped charts with “Gettin’ Jiggy wit It” and “Wild Wild West,” also earning Grammy awards. His last album, “Lost and Found,” came out in 2005, but he has recently featured on tracks by artists like Marc Anthony, Nicky Jam, Joyner Lucas, Bomba Estéreo, and his son, Jaden Smith.
When Paul heard Smith’s verse for “Light Em Up,” he was impressed. “Everybody in the studio with me was like, ‘Yo, Will went in, bro.’ [I replied], ‘Yeah, he did. He went hard.’ One of my favorite songs from him is ‘Summertime,’ which is more laid back, and this one was just more hardcore, more hitting. And it was fitting for the movie.”
The success of “Bad Boys 4” comes two years after Smith’s controversial incident at the Academy Awards. Paul remarked it’s “very awesome” to see the actor making a comeback. “There’s trying times in everybody’s life and I never ever write people up. There’s friends that I have that have done some crazy things at times — even my own pops, man — so when you give people the benefit of the doubt and give them a little space and they’re able to prove themselves and rise like the phoenix, that’s always an awesome thing,” he said.
Paul, accustomed to collaborating with legends, recalled his work with Beyoncé over 20 years ago on her solo debut album. Their reggae-flavored groove “Baby Boy” topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for nine weeks. “She opened on a show here in Jamaica with [Destiny’s Child]. They only had one song and I was on that same show, so that’s where we all met. And knowing that she called me back a couple of years later for her first other project was awesome. I was writing my part of the song in the back of my house underneath a mango tree. And while I’m writing my verse, a mango falls out the tree and falls straight through the window [of my car] into my lap. And I was like, ‘That must mean that this song is a sweet song,’” Paul recalled. “And one thing that I do recall about that time was being very proud that she used a dancehall-oriented track. Because at the time, people were hollering at me to do collabs — I was [working] with Busta Rhymes, I was doing stuff with Clipse and I was doing stuff with Blu Cantrell — and all of those stuff was very dope but they were more hip-hop oriented, and this was such a big artist and she was stepping out on her own. So it really made me feel that dancehall-style was coming into its own and that my music or my genre was being accepted by a lot of people,” he added. “Coming from Texas, I know she’s heard a lot of dancehall growing up and [was] familiar with that whole vibe, so it made sense to me and it made history for both of us.”
He expressed his desire to keep the dancehall sound alive.
“Our shows have amazing energy. It proves to me that no matter what nobody tells me about dancehall not being accepted in the States anymore, I’m selling out arenas and I’m still doing it and people still love it. We helped to spawn different genres of music. They got reggaeton, they got Afrobeats, but the real players in the game know how much we have influenced them,” Paul said.
“I have to state the claim of dancehall being as strong and as powerful as it is in the international market today. There’s still a lot of people using or utilizing that infectious beat that we have, and I’m proud of it. A lot of people can look at me as an elder statesman in the game, but I’m still performing like a young buck.”
