Shaggy
The Irish want to smile, and they want to have fun.Collection: Smile
I don't want another 'It Wasn't Me.' I've been asked that question so many times. Do I want a song of that magnitude? Great, always, but not the same type of music.
After I made 'Oh Carolina' in the 1990s, the record company wanted me to copy that sound, and I refused.
I've always been faced with all kinds of criticism. People were saying, 'Oh, Shaggy is pop. He can't do dancehall,' even though I came from dancehall.
I'm Shaggy. I'm a business.
My career has taken so many directions.
I've never been one that really won with major-name collaborators. You take, for instance, 'Angel' with Rayvon. 'It Wasn't Me' was with Rikrok. Nobody knew who those guys were.
You got to understand: when you go into a record company and give them a something that doesn't sound like what's on the radio, it's hard to sell it.
The mainstream is very fickle. If you're hot, they'll mess with you. If you're not, it's out of there.
I fought for this country.
I prefer working with artists who are prepared to get down in the dungeons and get the job done.
If you look at reggae and dancehall artists in general, there isn't really a big success story. A Shabba Ranks or a Yellowman might have a hit, but there's never a follow up. There's no consistency.
I've been criticized for doing so - crossover music. But I never claimed to be a pure dancehall artist.
I just do what sounds good to me, and people seem to like it.
I have a festival called Shaggy and Friends, which is a charity event to raise funds for a hospital.
If you listen to all my earlier stuff, it wasn't 'authentic reggae,' so to speak.
I like things that catch your ears.
I always had these big records with people who were relatively unknown.
I like having big hooks and big records and sing-a-longs.
We don't have all this gay-bashing crime. You don't see that. It's not there. That is not really happening in Jamaica. But because a few artists basically sing it and put records out and the media runs with it, then the stigma becomes big, and now we're trapped with that whole thing. It's really sad.
Gays and lesbians should have the same rights as anybody else, and when they're in Jamaica, they do have the same rights.
When we do reggae, it's normally a one-chord or a two-chord, or whatever it is. With Sting, there'll be chord changes, key changes.
I fought for the U.S. government. I live in New York. I pay taxes in America.
America is a symbol of freedom - it's a symbol of democracy - and if that is threatened, we have to take this platform and use it to be a voice for the voiceless.
If you look at my track record, there was nothing on radio that sounded like 'Oh Carolina,' 'Mr Bombastic' when they came out.
I'm no stranger to making timeless music.
When I was doing dancehalls, nobody was doing well in dancehalls. Dancehalls was not mainstream music that was blazing charts and knocking down barriers. This was an underground phenom.
I really didn't think I was going to make records to where I make a living out of it.
I think that anybody, once we leave Jamaica, automatically, any citizen becomes an ambassador for the flag, for Jamiaca. It's a country that's so rich in culture. We even have a bobsled team, and we ain't even got snow. We do everything in extreme.
My existence wouldn't be the same if there weren't women.
There are those women who degrade the name of women, and there are men who degrade the name of women. But for the most part, we can't live without them.
The pop market is a very fickle market, and that's why for me to go into the teeny-pop, 'TRL' mode, it's not really for me.
I want to build a fanbase. I want people to like my albums even more so than singles.
'Shaggy' is a brand.
I got to prove myself all the time. And that's good. It makes you stronger.
My thing is to get people out of the stigma of what a reggae artist should be like.
You don't create legends out of other legends.
I get called everything from 'Mr Boombastic' to 'Mr Lover Lover' to 'Mr It Wasn't Me.' It's whatever is hot at that point.
Women love to talk, so you gotta be the guy that listens - not just listens but is interested.
Reggae is a culture. It's easy, laid-back.
I like that raw energy that I get from an audience.
The Police, they were the guys that were like the gateway to the mainstream. In England, there was a very strong reggae movement that was going on. Anything that was happening in reggae happened out of England. They were brilliant. They could spot a sound that was cool, the 'it' sound.
The biggest thing I take away from the Army is that work ethic and being able to focus and put your eyes on a goal.
When I look at my catalog, most of my songs are about love or relationships. And I'm smart enough to say if it's not broken, don't fix it.
I've seen the harshest of reggae purists come give me my props because I've been at it for so long... They've seen me come from the hardest of hard-core dancehall to where I am, and they've heard my music change through the years. Some might not agree, but they respect.
'Fields of Gold' is my favourite record.
You've always got to try and reinvent yourself.
When magic happens, it just happens, brother.
The best thing about my house is that I live five minutes from the airport, and since I fly more than I drive, it saves me a lot of time.
I have mixed feelings about Napster. I like what it can do for an unsigned band. It can help them sell 10,000 records. But for an established artist, there's already so much piracy around. They need to regulate it.