Kartel Asks if Skin Colour Had a Part to Play in Sean Paul’s Success

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Incarcerated dancehall star Vybz Kartel questioned the rise of the internationally successful dancehall star Sean Paul and questioned if Sean’s lighter skin colour had anything to do with it. That’s what corporate executive Zachary Harding, who is Sean Paul’s former manager mentioned.

Harding also said, “Kartel and I had a long conversation and he started to ask what role Sean’s ‘brownness’ played in his success”. “And this was right at the time when Kartel started bleaching,” He added.

Harding, Sean Paul’s first manager who was working with him when he got the Grammy award and achieve super stardom. At the time he was under the management and production of Zachary’s brother, Jeremy Harding, he sold more than 26 million records worldwide. Even though Kartel has been the most popular artiste in Jamaica, he has never won a Reggae Grammy and his commercial success overseas cannot be compared to Sean Paul’s at all.

There were Panellists discussing the issue of colourism recently and they noted that Bob Marley had other attributes and they outweighed his skin colour.

Tommy Cowan, who is an accomplished recording artiste and producer who was Marley’s marketing manager when he started getting famous; was a member of the panel as well, and said many attributes made Bob great such as his amazing talent, relentless work rate, the team working with him, and he also knew what he wanted to achieve as an artiste.

He remembered that Marley even wrote that “the people did not buy into me, they bought into the message” on one of the covers of his album. Unlike other artistes back then, there was Bob’s widow Rita, who worked hard to keep her husband’s legacy alive, long after he died in 1981 of cancer.

Chang also stated that “Beside every successful man, there is a woman”.
Harding pointed out that, track legend Usain Bolt has achieved significant financial success away from the sport even while he is visibly another black Jamaican superstar. “at the end of the day, it’s the product that wins.” He added.