From ‘Bad Boys’ to “Baby Boy”: Sean Paul on Collaborating With Will Smith and Beyoncé

 

 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.”