Somebody call 911! Sean Kingston hits up Montreal’s Metropolis

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Written by: Angel Karmazenuk & Roshni Alam – Interview by: Norine Alam

Caught in Montreal traffic, driving up to meet the young reggaeton king himself, Sean Kingston’s (SK) song, ‘Fire Burning’, just so happened to be playing on the radio. Surely you’ve heard this platinum chart topper at least once if it’s not hanging around in your play list already.   If you’re not somewhat familiar with this tremendously talented rising artist, it’s about time to check him out.

Sean Kingston first made his mark in 2007, ripping up the charts with his debut single ‘Beautiful Girls’ featuring beats from Ben E. King’s ‘Standy By Me’. Also known for the hit singles, ‘Me Love’ and ‘Take You There’, this acclaimed Jamaican artist has worked with huge names in the music industry including Little Wayne, Akon, Wyclef Jean and Timbaland.  SK recently graced Montreal with his performance at Metropolis.  Lucky for us, we had the opportunity to have a few words with him before his big night.

It was was in the lobby of the glamorous Opus hotel that we first introduced ourselves, shaking hands and breaking the ice by asking Sean how we was feeling about that night’s show, as he got ready to perform in front of a sold out crowd.

“It’s crazy man you know what I mean, like, it’s gonna be dope, it’s gonna be real nice. I’m excited for tonight; a lot of energy.”

His enthusiasm catching, it was difficult to not be excited for the performance as well.  Not to get ahead of ourselves, we decided to rewind time a little and asked SK how he first started as a performer and what really got him into music; more specifically, we wanted to know how he knew that this was it.

“You know I just basically been…” he began before pausing to further think about his answer.  “It’s something that’s been a part of me, you know what I’m sayin? My grandfather was a big producer in Jamaica, Jack Ruby. I guess that’s where I got it from cause my Mom & my Dad all do music but I just been doing it like since I was 7. It’s something I’ve been in to, writing, producing…well…writing, trying to produce, going to piano lessons, just you know like playing the drums a little bit here and there. Just trying to do music you know? All of a sudden I finally knew that this is what I wanted to do when I was 8 years old and I came first place at a talent show. I did it in high school too and came first place and then that’s when I was like okay!”

Being only 20 years old, people might tend to forget that SK has had to display a tremendous amount of perseverance and motivation to get to where he is today.

“Oh yeah it’s been a lot of work, a lot of times, a lot of struggle.” He said to us when we mentioned admiring his dedication and drive.  Some might be surprised to know that prior to making it big, SK was e-mailing J.R. Rottem – now his producer – up to three times a day.

“It’s crazy man you know what I’m sayin? My persistence. Persistence is the key to any success you know what I’m sayin?” Sean said when asked how it had felt to finally get that break, to finally get a response from Rottem. “Could be a lawyer, could be a doctor whatever just gotta have persistence, that’s what I had.”