Sean Paul
The Jamaican dancehall artist who put Kingston rhythms and patois on top of American pop radio. Sean Paul turned reggae into a staple of every club and school dance for five years straight: three number-one hits (one of them a Beyoncé collab), a Grammy, the sound of the mid-2000s.
Sean Paul Ryan Francis Henriques was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1973, but his moment came much later. His breakthrough album, Dutty Rock, dropped in November 2002, leading with "Gimme the Light," a track that cracked the American market. Then came "Get Busy," which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2003—his first U.S. number-one single. The album itself won Best Reggae Album at the 46th Grammy Awards in 2004 and went double-platinum in the U.S., selling over six million copies worldwide. Dancehall, a sound built on Kingston riddims and patois, had suddenly become the language of American pop radio.
That same year, 2003, Sean Paul collaborated with Beyoncé on "Baby Boy," another chart-topper, proving his moment wasn't a fluke. His next album, The Trinity, arrived September 27, 2005, debuting at number five on the Billboard 200. Its single "Temperature" climbed to number one on the Hot 100 in 2006—his third U.S. number-one hit. For five years, from 2002 to 2006, every club, every radio station, every school dance in America ran on Sean Paul. His career would stretch far beyond that window, but those years belonged entirely to him.
Similar items
Beyoncé
The girl-group superstar who bet on herself and became simply the biggest star in music. From "Crazy in Love" in the summer of 2003 to "Single Ladies" closing out 2008, Beyoncé's solo run WAS the sound of the decade.
Shaggy — It Wasn't Me
The get-caught-and-just-deny-everything anthem of 2000 — Shaggy and RikRok trading a call-and-response about brazenly denying an affair. An accidental single that became a number-one smash on both sides of the Atlantic and a karaoke staple forever after.
98 Degrees
The boy band that built itself—assembled independently by four guys chasing the dream in Los Angeles, without a Lou Pearlman or corporate svengali telling them who to be. They cracked the charts with 1997's "Invisible Man," then spent 1998–2000 as Motown Records' R&B-leaning answer to the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, delivering a handful of genuine hits including one number-one collaboration with Mariah Carey, then watched their moment fade when Nick Lachey married Jessica Simpson in 2002 and reality TV captured his afterlife.
Backstreet Boys
Orlando's harmonizing five-piece formed the template for late-90s teen-pop dominance. The Backstreet Boys' matching choreography and Lou Pearlman's boy-band machinery made them a TRL staple, an arena-tour juggernaut, and the answer to every teen magazine's "Who's your favorite Backstreet Boy?" quiz.