Sean Paul says a “language barrier” is one of the reasons dancehall artists fail to make it big in the UK and US.
He believes it’s hard for some people to understand “hardcore patois” – which is a mixture of several languages, including English, spoken in Jamaica.
But he says dancehall has set a trend – big acts like Justin Bieber and Drake have been influenced by its sound.
“One day we are going to get people logging on back to what we do,” Sean Paul tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.
To fans of dancehall, Sean Paul will always be known for his hardcore tunes such as Get Busy, Temperature and Gimme The Light from the early 2000s.
But over the last few years he’s had some big chart hits with massive pop stars including Dua Lipa (No Lie), Sia (Cheap Thrills) , Little Mix (Hair) and Clean Bandit (Rockabye).
And this year he played on the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury as well as the main stage at Radio 1’s Big Weekend.
But Sean Paul says he’s had his fair share of failures too.
“It’s been a long journey for me. I keep my ears to my ground and listen.
“There’s been a lot of times that I did lose, a lot of times that I never really won with the song and failed.
“People remember those but I think the story of the glory is pretty cool and a lot of the songs reached the glory stage, so big up to everyone who helped me to be that.”
