Sean Paul Details His Personal Struggles With Drug Addict Father

Sean Paul is opening up about his torturous past with his father.

International dancehall star Sean Paul has always had to prove himself to his own local audience more than his international fans. The culture in dancehall music often glorifies those who come from a certain type of ‘struggle’ and consider them to be more authentic artistes. Since Sean has always been considered an ‘uptown’ lad, for the most part, many fans often assumed his upbringing was all roses and gold spoons.

The “No Lie” dancehall star revealed in a new interview that he struggled as a child with his relationship with his father, who was a drug addict and gangster. Sean Paul admitted that his father is one of his heroes and someone he loves. As a child, he suffered the noticeable agony of an absentee father due to jail stints, rehab stints, and more.

“Mi father crash ganja plane inna di Everglades, mi father was in prison from mi was 18 year old,” Sean Paul said adding that his dad passed away two years ago “The things weh me go thru as a yute and see, every Sunday police outside a talk to mi father and a try bribe him fi dis or dat and me a seh jah know. So those things was no cushy lifestyle bro.”

Sean explained that his dad was a cocaine addict, and there were times outside of incarceration when he wasn’t around for months at a time. He recalled that his mother would drive him and his brother to a place and brought his father out to them to tell them that he would be home soon. Sean Paul ultimately repaired his broken relationship with his dad, who he says became one of his “good friends,” but his mother is the real hero of his life.

The Grammy Award-winning deejay also revealed that members of upscale communities have financial woes as well. In addition to the threats and risks that came the family’s way with his father’s lifestyle, Sean Paul says his dad used to drive a car with a huge hole in the floor that they had to cover when it rained. They couldn’t afford brakes, so his father would pull over briskly on the side of the road, hoping to come to a stop without collision.

In retrospect, Sean Paul understands that at first, his father was simply still a kid. “If you don’t have your life together your pickney dem aguh suffer too,” he explained.

Do you think music artistes are held to an unfair classist standard in the dancehall industry?