words: Kevin Yuen photos: Brigitte Sire
For four hours in late April, the 17-year-old Sean Kingston is supposed to stay cooped up in a room at a public relations firm in Manhattan, interviewing with writers from websites and blogs. Being a new artist, the rapper/singer ends up answering a lot of the same questions. He fields most of them like a pro, his steady, unwavering demeanor cooler and more patient than people twice his age. The only things seemingly distracting him are his partner and his Sidekick. He constantly taps away at his toy, but it’s mostly his cousin, DJ Hype King, that he enjoys horsing around with. They aren’t blood cousins—Kingston and Hype King’s mothers were close friends—but nobody can tell when they are yelling in patois, wrestling each other and laughing. At one point between interviews, while working on a complex handshake, Hype King jabs Kingston in the stomach and Sean lets out a giggly bellow. His laugh is jovial and contagious, and he probably can’t ever drink milk because he always seems primed to blow it out his nose. Kingston bleeds charisma and his face exudes a refreshing, youthful glow not typical of working, child musicians. These qualities, combined with his focus, drive and talent, forecast a promising music career for the young star, jumpstarted by the buzz-worthy summer ode “Beautiful Girls.”
Behind the boards of “Beautiful Girls,” the first single off Kingston’s upcoming album Eyes Above Water, is 30-year-old superstar producer J.R. Rotem. With a laundry list of credits, he remains one of the most in-demand pop hit makers, recently crossing over from making a compendium of G-Unit records to smashes like Rihanna’s “S.O.S.,” Rick Ross’ “Push It,” and laying down tracks for the likes of Britney Spears and Snoop Dogg. Though he works with the top names in the music industry, Rotem continues to be impressed with the 17-year-old boy wonder. “He gets in there, hears some music, hears the beat and goes with it,” Rotem says. “He goes with what he feels. [It’s] just a very natural creative process that he has.” In fact, Rotem saw so much potential that he plucked the young Kingston from cyberspace and made him the first signee of his label, Beluga Heights. On a whim, Kingston messaged Rotem’s MySpace and ended up dealing with Beluga Heights A&R Tommy Rotem, J.R.’s brother. “That was a little crazy…,” Kingston remembers of the surprise correspondence. “I just kept hittin’ him up, hittin’ him up, hittin’ him up.” A few critiques and file transfers later, Tommy presented Sean Kingston to his brother, who approved. “He’s a raw talent,” lauds J.R. “There was something about him that’s just pure. He’s so young. He’s so musical. That whole Jamaican flavor that he brought to the table, and he’s from Miami. There was something very different about him.”
Rotem recalls the genesis of “Beautiful Girls” at his room in the famous Chalice Studios in LA, when “Stand by Me” began playing on the radio. “Everyone in the kitchen was just listening to it and grooving to it,” Rotem remembers. “[Sean] came in here like, ‘Dude, let’s flip that.’ I was like, ‘Okay. Let’s try it.’ So I bought it on iTunes and started playing with it and within five minutes, we basically had the track…He said, ‘Just leave me alone.’ He lost himself in the room for an hour and the song was done.” Kingston’s final product is a slick, double-time reinterpretation of the 1960 Ben E. King tune, exchanging King’s smooth pleas of companionship for cries of somber lament. The chorus chides, “You’re way too beautiful, girl / That’s why it’ll never work / You’ll have me suicidal, suicidal / When you say it’s over.”
A more typical studio session has Rotem composing the music and playing out the melodies while Kingston tries out different lyrics for the songs. “That’s the thing me and J.R. have: chemistry,” says Kingston. “We got that work ethic. I never saw a dude who makes beats in 30 minutes…that’s talent.” He adds, laughing, “He still needs to keep up with me, though.” Kingston and Rotem share an almost obsessive thirst, a unique vision and a mutual respect, stemming from a background of hard hustle. For Rotem, who was born to Israeli immigrants in South Africa, it was his 12-hour classical piano practice sessions during his childhood in Toronto and the Bay Area. He eventually went on to graduate from the Berklee School of Music and get his foot in the door of contemporary music, producing a couple tracks for Destiny’s Child’s 2001 album Survivor. Now, he’s looking to expand his Beluga Heights empire with a reality TV show about his life, also called Beluga Heights, and a clothing brand, as well as new acts for the label and publishing company. “We consider our label to be a pop label, so we’re looking at rock acts, pop vocal, R&B.” Rotem says. “It doesn’t have to be just hip hop at all. We’re really looking to make it something big.”
The towering 6-foot 2-inch Kingston has a tattoo that covers about three-fourths of the top of his fist, just below the knuckles on his right hand. It reads “time is money” in tiny capital letters above a clock situated next to a stack of bills. Below the graphic, it reads “entertainment.” Time is Money Entertainment is the name of Sean Kingston’s record label, and it’s etched into his skin forever to illustrate his dedication. For someone who just signed to a major label less than six months ago, Sean sure seems to be in a hurry. But then again, he’s been waiting for this for a long time. “It was what I wanted to do,” says Kingston. “I was never into video games. I would just stand in the living room with a mic in my hands watching BET, pretending like I’m doing something, like that rapper was me.” The work’s paid off, and he’s got the diamond-encrusted chains to prove it too. A black shield proudly proclaims Beluga Heights and another represents with the Jamaican flag, both clacking together as he walks. But he’s not done yet. “There is so much you can do in this game,” he insists. “I’m not here for no one time deal, no one hit wonder. I’m here for longevity…Other rappers wait two albums, three albums [to start a label]. I want to [start] at my first album, ’cause I have everything. I’m so business-minded. My company is incorporated. I have a studio already. I already know what I want to do and where this thing is supposed to be at.” Again, he’s 17 years old, folks.
Sean Kingston was born Sean Anderson in Miami on February 3, 1990. When he was seven, he was shipped off to Jamaica to live with his father to become immersed in his heritage. Soon after landing in Jamaica, Kingston started rapping at the age of eight and never stopped, gradually increasing his prolific output to the point where he says he now writes three songs a day, two of which he deems “good.” He returned to Miami when he was 11 and began winning local talent competitions, eventually landing him opening act spots for artists like Trick Daddy, Rick Ross and Pitbull. Then, after getting into fights at school, he returned to Jamaica in 2004 for a year. He continued performing and was put on again. “I shared the stage with the Buju Banton,” Kingston remembers. “I was freestyling Jamaican accapella on stage with him and the crowd was going crazy. They was going nuts. It was a good reception at such a young age.” The success didn’t stop there, Kingston tweaked his musical style and started singing as well as rapping. He went from slangin’ mixtapes on South Beach to peddling his wares on the internet, where he sat himself down on the MySpace stoop of J.R. Rotem.
Now that he has a few doors open for him, Kingston isn’t stopping until he opens the garage and nabs the keys for the car too. The attack of underage musicians begins with a joint mixtape he’s working on with 16-year-old rapper Jibbs, who he recently befriended. Kingston’s first Time is Money signee, is his 19-year-old cousin Raheem Robinson, better known as DJ Hype King. Hype has plans of his own to put together a DJ album, a la his mentor DJ Khaled, but with all artists under the age of 21. “Me and my cousin are trying to start a movement and take over as the young kids,” Kingston charges. “There are a whole bunch of kids. Bow Wow, Romeo, we [could] all come together.” While he displays a level of ambition reserved for leaders, Kingston views himself as an easy going personality in the music business. “I see myself [as] a young kid…who doesn’t care what people say,” he insists. “[I] write music from the heart and just want people to remember me for bringing real feel good music back.”
Kingston finishes his four hour sparring session with the internet press, and later that night performs his first official show at S.O.B.’s in SoHo. It’s actually a Hot 97 showcase, but it’s also the first time people will be hearing “Beautiful Girls” and another song, “Colors 2007,” live. Kingston is the penultimate performace, right before Brooklynite headliner Joell Ortiz. Hype King serves as his hype man and, overall, it seems like the almost-to-capacity audience receives Kingston well. Kingston sways on stage to his songs, handling his cues like a professional. However, the affable teenager disappears for a moment, his bright smile unbends a few degrees as his face displays the slight hint of an emotion not previously seen on the kid today—nervousness, which reminds us of his unbelievably young age. He finishes up, hops off the stage and exits through the crowd, drawing high fives and congratulations all around. “I think it turned out pretty dope,” Kingston says. “I could’ve done better, but I think it was good.”
After the show, Kingston stops by Legacy Studios for a chance to flex his recording muscle with DJ Clue. By the time he arrives, Clue has already been fiddling with the keyboard in a room that looks like it was made to resemble Houston’s NASA Space Command Center. Clue leaves Kingston and his posse of about 20 with a few sinister-sounding piano beats, and Sean gets to work. As the beat plays on an infinite loop, Kingston taps out some lyrics onto his Sidekick, his manager and cousin seated on opposite sides of him, heads together. Kingston recites what he has to his personal audience for quality control, and when he feels it’s strong enough, gets into the booth and bangs it out over an hour. Kingston, whose 23-year-old sister also serves as his handler, says having his family close keeps him grounded. “We click and we bump heads,” agrees Hype King. “We don’t argue about anything major, but if I hear something I don’t like, I’ll tell him. Other people in the room will probably be like, ‘Yeah, that’s hot.’ They want to say something, but they’re scared.”
Kingston records tracks into the night, only stopping because he has a meeting the next day at noon, his youthful resilience able to keep him running throughout the extremely packed day. He takes immense pride in being an emerging star and leading a musical movement of young’uns, and claims he’s not scared of getting older, even if that means his voice will change. Sean Kingston still has a lot of life left, yet he treats his time as money, which may be the secret he’s keeping to have it both ways. “I been through a lot, [but] I feel young,” he says. “I just got an older mentality. Life in general, I look at in a different way. My mind is a lot older. I think I’m more mature than the average 17-year-old. But I think I’m young.”
