Love Like This
Natasha Bedingfield featuring Sean Kingston
· Natasha Bedingfield featuring Sean Kingston
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Artist
Sean Kingston
Why we feature this artist A pop melody with a Jamaican family history Sean Kingston's first hit placed a troubled romantic lyric over a melody and rhythm that seemed to promise an easier afternoon. That contrast made Beautiful Girls unusually distinctive. The…
- From
- United States, Jamaica
- Sound
- Reggae fusion, R&B, pop
- Active
- 2007–present
Start with the music
Tracks to explore
The artist, in context
The story of Sean Kingston
Why we feature this artist
A pop melody with a Jamaican family history
Sean Kingston's first hit placed a troubled romantic lyric over a melody and rhythm that seemed to promise an easier afternoon. That contrast made Beautiful Girls unusually distinctive. The records around it combined reggae and dancehall inflections with American pop and R&B, giving a recognisable singing voice several different kinds of beat to inhabit.
The first album
Born in Miami and raised partly in Jamaica, Kingston developed a musical identity between those settings. His self-titled debut appeared in 2007, with producer J.R. Rotem playing an important role in its sound. Beautiful Girls used the familiar musical foundation of Ben E. King's Stand by Me, making recognition part of the song's immediate appeal.
Me Love and Take You There gave the debut other points of entry, broadening the rhythmic palette without losing the clear melodic emphasis. Kingston was not primarily presented as a spectacular technical singer. The attraction was in the tone, the slightly rounded phrasing and the way a short line could become a refrain that seemed already familiar.
Tomorrow and Back 2 Life
Tomorrow followed in 2009, with Fire Burning putting the voice inside a more overtly electronic dance-pop setting. Face Drop showed another facet of the same album, while the later Justin Bieber collaboration Eenie Meenie extended Kingston's presence through a particularly direct shared hook. These records made the pop ambition clearer without entirely losing the earlier Caribbean colouring.
Back 2 Life arrived in 2013. Its title track, featuring T.I., drew on Soul II Soul's Back to Life, returning to the practice of making an older musical memory part of a new song. Across the first three albums, Kingston's best-known material repeatedly works through that relationship between familiarity and a distinctive vocal personality, with the beat changing the scale and mood of the conversation.
Essential releases
Sean Kingston
Beautiful Girls, Me Love and Take You There establish the debut's melodic mixture of pop, reggae and R&B.
Tomorrow
Fire Burning gives the voice a more emphatic electronic dance setting.
Back 2 Life
The title track revisits Soul II Soul within another guest-driven pop and hip-hop framework.