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R&B singer  Sean Kingston coming to Witt

R&B singer Sean Kingston, whose "Beautiful Girls" was a big hit a couple of summers ago, will play Wittenberg University on Dec. 3.

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By Andrew McGinn, Staff Writer 4:27 PM Thursday, November 26, 2009

SPRINGFIELD — This is what you call coming full circle.

In 2002, Springfield hosted the source.

Now we get the sample.

But just imagine Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls” without the bass line to Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me.”

Just imagine a contemporary R&B act actually playing the bass.

King came to town in ’02 — Kingston will play Wittenberg University’s HPER Center gym on Thursday, Dec. 3, in a show that’ll take two colleges (Witt and Clark State) to pull off.

Kingston, however, is still in his prime. (He was overseas and unavailable for an interview.)

The baby-faced Jamaican singer/rapper sampled King’s 1961 classic to create one of the biggest songs of the summer of 2007. (Ah, it already seems so long ago.)

The 19-year-old has been back to the Top 10 with “Take You There” and “Fire Burning.”

Neither sampled “Spanish Harlem.” (Sorry, a little Ben E. King humor there.)

Kingston, whose grandfather, Jack Ruby, produced some classic ’70s reggae for Burning Spear, clearly is a 21st century musical product.

His first album, the one with “Beautiful Girls” on it, has only gone gold — yet he’s sold more than 4.5 million ringtones.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.