Sean Paul Says His Dad, Who ‘Crashed A Ganja Plane In The Everglades’, Was “Mad Proud” Of ‘Gimmie The Light’
It’s not every day that you come across someone with a ganja smuggling dad who ‘crashed a plane in the Everglades,’ but it’s certainly the reality for Dancehall superstar Sean Paul.
Sean, the eldest of two boys to Frances and Garth Henriques grew up in a multi-ethnic family in the upscale metropolis of Kingston, Jamaica. When he was about 9 years old his father, a former coach of Jamaica’s National Water Polo team, made headlines in the summer of 1982 when he was found floating on a life raft about 30 miles east of Port Everglades in Florida with 700 pounds of marijuana that he had attempted to fly in from his homeland.
The airplane ran out of gas and crashed into the sea where Henriques and his co-conspirator, Mark Marchand, were picked up by the authorities after a night drifting with their Cherokee 6 aircraft and bobbing bales of marijuana. Henriques, who was 32 at the time, was deported back to Jamaica but, a few years later, was again convicted for a vehicular manslaughter-related incident and served a six-year prison term.
In not so many details, Paul shared a snippet of his father’s ganja smuggling escapade with host Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s At Home With podcast a few days ago.
The tidbit was prompted by the reach his hit record Gimme The Light has had on countries across the globe and particularly with weed smokers who quite often use the phrase to fire up their ganja spliff.
For Sean, the most popular and notorious weed lover he knows is his dad. He revealed that Henriques was exceptionally proud of the success he gained from the track when it released in 2001 as the first single off Dutty Rock. It subsequently peaked at No. 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and was also a hit in the Netherlands, UK, and Canada.
“The song means a lot to me … it lasted so long and it big up all the weed dudes. My father was locked up several times for weed, he crashed a ganja plane in the Everglades, he was a crazy dude,” Paul smirked.
“Yeah for all of those things he went through, when this song (Gimme The Light) broke, he was mad proud of his boy,” he added.
The now Grammy-award-winning Dancehall deejay said he came up with the verses for Gimme The Light off the dome, and was just simply rhyming on the spot to the beat by Miami-based Black Shadow Records duo Troyton Rami & Roger Mackenzie. Paul explained that during the session, he recollected the events of the week prior which involved a night out at a club in New York.
“In Jamaica, we weren’t breaking bottles of mo’ (Moet), we didn’t smoke no dro (hydroponically grown marijuana) but I was seeing this in New York so I’mma just say those things that I’m seeing,” he said when he envisioned the concept.
The outcome and success of Gimme The Light changed his whole approach to a more free-flowing style of music creation. “And that’s when I started to write more like that … before I was, you know, writing down in the notebook. For better music from me, I believe that taught me to it that way (off the dome). I had hits before but they were kinda constructed,” he noted.
Paul would go on to record other mega-hits like, Get Busy, Like Glue, Temperature, We Burnin’ and numerous international collaborations like Give It Up To Me with Keshia Cole, Baby Boy with Beyonce, No Lie with Dupa Lipa, Calling On Me with Tove Lo, Cheap Thrills with Sia, Rockabye with Clean Bandit and the list goes on.
After all these huge accomplishments, to say his father was proud would be an understatement.
Sean’s father eventually cleaned up his act. He authored a book, Memoirs Of A Jamaican Gentleman: From Prep School To Penitentiary, and went on to live in the seaside city of Ocho Rios, at the foot of the mountains where a friend has a natural spring. The one-time ganja smuggler turned his life around to sell distilled spring water for an honest living.
Garth Henriques died in August 2018 of an unknown illness.
Watch the full interview of Apple Music’s At Home With Sean Paul podcast below: