Next week will mark 15 years since the release of Sean Paul’s mega-hit Temperature.

The Jamaican superstar had already attained international status with prior releases like Get Busy, Gimmie Di Light, and Baby Boy with Beyoncé, but said Temperature added to a surreal period where his life felt like a whirlwind.

“It was a whirlwind and to look back at it now and say, ‘Wow, 2006 Temperature was the biggest song on the Billboard charts’, that’s amazing,” he said in a recent interview with . “I’ve always strived to having songs back there and I’ve done pretty much a couple times and it’s just amazing. Sometimes I feel like it’s a dream so thank you to the fans and people who appreciate the music and been there from day one.”Out Loud With Claudia Jordan

Temperature peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, kicking Neyo’s So Sick from the top spot. The Rohan ‘Snowcone’ Fuller-produced record stayed on the chart for 31 weeks.

Reflecting on the time, Paul said he didn’t realise how much life was continuing around him as fame had taken him out of the loop.

“I’m always doing the same things; I’m in the studio coming up with fresh ideas, I’m flying to shows entertaining people…so naturally I started to be in a kind of bubble and I would come home and see my friends’ kids growing up and I started going, ‘Wow, time is passing and I’m just not noticing it’. And then it happened to me; I had my own kids and I’m seeing within four years he’s telling me all kind of big words and stuff like that.”

He has two children with wife Jodi ‘Jinx’ Henriques and said the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed him to slow down and catch up on family time.

“I have a son who’s gonna be four on Saturday and his name is Levi and my daughter is Remi and she’s like a year and a half so that’s just given me a whole new perspective cause coming and going you think you got it down and then being here I think I’m a much better dad for it so that was one of the positives.”

New album

After he “kinda crawled away in my house, not doing anything” for five months, he returned to the studio. The end result is his upcoming Live N Livin album to be released on March 12. The 16-track set will aim to challenge the notion held by some national music figures that dancehall as a genre is dead.

“It’s kind of my statement to people who say that dancehall as a genre – because of the low numbers right now – is dead, but I kinda want people to check the pulse… This is the first time in a longtime I’ve been able to sit at home and cultivate a great album, so more hardcore dancehall. It’s what people know me for.”

The album is loaded with features with names like Buju Banton, Mavado, Agent Sasco, Damian Marley, Busy Signal, Govana, Stonebwoy, Skillibeng, Masicka and Intence among those rostered.

He is also expected to release another album, Scorcher, in May, with the Jordan McClure-produced title track on the Style A Style rhythm.