Sean Paul says he usually writes songs for women, but when Will Smith called him to collaborate on a song for Bad Boys: Ride or Die, he needed him to turn up his inner bad boy.

“He sent me the song with him on it already and basically asked me to do a verse, and I went in. 

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 tells 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 soundtrack accompanying the film 

that opened to a victorious $56.5 million at the domestic box office.

Paul, 51, recalls meeting Smith earlier in his career: In the early 2000s when he appeared on the soundtrack for the animated film Shark Tale, which Smith voiced the main character, and at one of his concerts, where he and Smith talked backstage.

“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 says. “I look up to him in terms of being a mogul and a music person for a long time.”

The voice behind hits like “Get Busy” and “Gimme the Light” adds that getting the call to work with Smith almost 25 years after he released 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 explains. “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.”

Paul, who recently performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, will wrap the U.S. leg of his Greatest Tour on Sunday. He will visit Europe and Canada this summer. 

He says he wants 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 says.

“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 elderly statesman in the game, but I’m still performing like a young buck.”

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Source: Tampa Bay Times