Photograph: Pedro Alvarez/The ObserverPhotograph: Pedro Alvarez/The Observer
Born Sean Paul Ryan Francis Henriques in Kingston, Jamaica in 1973, he struggled to find his place growing up. “From 13 to 19 years old, me and my brother spent our lives just trying to fit in,” he tells me, his dark glasses revealing a glimpse of his watery eyes. “We didn’t belong. I wanted to write about the social differences in Kingston, as that’s what I had experienced, but the party boy, the girl songs – that was just what people wanted.
When Paul was 13, his father was arrested on charges of manslaughter and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. “I lost my dad and I couldn’t understand when I would ever see him again, since a 15-year sentence was longer than my entire life at that point,” Paul says. His mother struggled to keep him and his brother at their private school and they ended up at Wolmer’s public school in Downtown, thrust into a new facet of Kingston life.