Sean Paul

Sean Paul Ryan Francis Henriques (born 9 January 1973 in Kingston) carried dancehall furthest into international pop without softening the deejay style to do it. His family background is a compressed version of Jamaica's own: a mother of English and Chinese Jamaican descent, a paternal line descending from Sephardic Jews who left Portugal for the island in the seventeenth century, and Afro-Jamaican roots on his father's side.

He was a serious athlete before he was a musician, playing water polo for Jamaica from thirteen to twenty-one — his grandfather had been on the country's first men's team — and gave it up at twenty-one for music. "Gimme the Light" broke in 2001 and crossed to the American charts the following year; Dutty Rock (2002) sold more than six million copies and took the Best Reggae Album Grammy in 2004.

"Get Busy" and "Temperature" both reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and he has stayed the artist international pop reaches for when it wants the real thing — Beyoncé, Sia, Clean Bandit, Dua Lipa and J Balvin among them. Eight studio albums from Stage One (2000) to Scorcha (2022), and one of the most streamed Jamaican artists there has ever been.