SEAN KINGSTON

Born in Miami and raised in Jamaica, Sean Kingston grew up on reggae and rap. But he based his summer smash, ''Beautiful Girls,'' on a tune from another time and place altogether: the '60s R&B classic ''Stand by Me.'' ''There was something magic about the song,'' the 17-year-old recalls. ''I heard it on the radio and said to myself, 'Yo, did anybody [ever] sample this?''' Kingston and producer J.R. Rotem (50 Cent, Rihanna) cooked up a sugary ditty that topped Billboard's Hot 100 chart for four weeks and notched 1.3 million digital sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But Kingston is keeping his newfound fame in perspective. ''This could go away in a snap minute, so I gotta work.'' —Simon Vozick-Levinson