Sean Paul Reacts To Snoop Dogg’s Announcement That He’s “Giving Up Smoke”
Dancehall superstar Sean Paul has reacted to Snoop Dogg’s announcement that he is “giving up smoke,” a statement which has caused speculation about whether or not the rapper is referring to quitting marijuana usage or is being provocative.
“Blessings my G. One love same f-ckin way bro,” Sean Paul wrote in response to Snoop’s statement on Instagram, which noted that: “After much consideration & conversation with my family, I’ve decided to give up smoke. Please respect my privacy at this time”.
Sean Paul, who is known to praise ganja in his songs, has, in the past, quit ganja smoking, albeit temporarily.
In a High Times Magazine interview in 2021, the Gimme Di Light singer had said that the first time he quit was in the mid-2010s, which saw him “only eating edibles for five years”. However, he had also revealed that he got back into the practice “with a celebratory spliff, when his son was born”, and then quit for a brief period in 2020, because he is an asthmatic.
Back then, according to Sean Paul, he had only consumed cannabis oil, which he made himself, but had started lighting up his spliffs again in 2020 during Christmas.
“There are times when I smoke and other times when I’ll only take edibles. But yeah, the point is, I’m a ganja person…,” he had told the cannabis publication.
Sean had also said in an interview with The Independent in October 2021, that he was about to venture into the legal cannabis business, as he had seen an opportunity in the market for healthy edibles.
At the time, he had pointed out that the edibles currently on the market were able to help people who are unable to, or do not smoke, but are problematic as the sugar content tends to be very high.
“Edibles can help a lot if a person can’t smoke, but if that person is sick with diabetes then these edibles are gonna kill him because they’re full of sugar!” he explained.
“I’m in the process of trying to make edibles that are more healthy, and for now I’m also developing my own strain of smokes that people can enjoy,” he added.
Musically speaking, over the years Sean Paul has recorded a series of Ganja songs, among them We Be Burning, Gimme Di Light, Ganja Breed, Weed Indeed, Suh Mi High, and Ganja Man which was a collab with Bynon. He also collaborated on Weed Problems with Chi Ching Ching, and also voiced Ganja Mi Smoke on the After Party riddim.
Snoop too, had also released Reggae-tinged songs paying homage to marijuana on his Reincarnated Reggae-fusion album, which was released back in 2013.
That album, which Billboard described as “pop record laced with an assortment of roots and dancehall reggae references,” contained several tracks which celebrated marijuana, such as Lighters Up featuring Mavado and Popcaan; Smoke the Weed featuring Collie Budz and Ashtrays and Heartbreaks featuring Miley Cyrus.
In April this year, Snoop also collaborated with Buju Banton on the track High Life, which celebrated organically-grown landrace Ganja, fresh from the farm.
On Thursday, the commenters on Snoop’s IG page also questioned whether his page had been hacked, while others said that it could be a part of some product marketing campaign. Still, many surmised that the rapper could possibly be about to release a new line of edibles for cannabis users who were seeking an alternative to smoking.
“I refuse to believe this. Definitely a part of some marketing campaign that he’s a part of. Some new smoking device will have the slogan, “Give Up Smoke” and he’ll be the spokesperson. Super Bowl commercial maybe,” one man noted.
Sean Paul, during his High Times interview which was centered on ganja-related issues and music, credited the herb for helping to activate his creativity when penning his songs, as according to him, the weed puts him in ‘a euphoric mood’.
“That’s what I like about it—pot is a very creative substance. Even when I sang the song, ‘Gimme the Light,’ I can say that it helped me out a lot…,” he had told the publication.
He also said that he was willing to work with entrepreneurial-minded people to make “edibles into a healthier medicine”.
“So, if the industry wants to holler at me and hear my ideas about these things, I’d love to go into that part of the business with y’all. There are people who need cannabis as medicine and some of them can’t smoke or consume large quantities of sugar on a consistent basis,” he had said.