Shaggy
I'm still amazed at how the universe works.
When I look back at the people who shaped me, that made a difference in my life, most of them were women.
I constantly tour every year, around the clock. That's how I make my living, and I do very well. Because I have classic songs.
When you see a Jamaica video, it's always the hood. Everybody in the video's got guns, and the world looks at it like that's what Jamaica's about. And it affects the economics of the music.
I used to do three or four songs a day, just write them - boom, boom, boom, and done - because of how spontaneous I was.
Music, music, music. It doesn't get much better than that! It pretty much consumes my life.
I'm inspired by day to day life, things that people go through, things that make people tick. Everybody has a story, so you try to put stories into songs and try to make it as entertaining as possible.
A lot of people do records, and they get hit records, but we were blessed with a lot of monsters. 'Oh Carolina' was a very monstrous record in 1993; so was 'Boombastic,' 'Angel' and 'It Wasn't Me.'
Music really evolves as it goes along. It's an evolution.
I am not from a musical family.
I came to the Unites States and realised I had a knack for coming up with rhymes and lyrics.
India is a great place.
I love Indian food.
I live in Kingston. When I tell people I live in Kingston, they start fearing for my life. People ask me if I have Internet in Jamaica. Like, seriously?
The reggae fraternity is a small fraternity.
Making records is not brain surgery.
I'm not the guy to get big record company budgets. My budget is Britney Spears' catering money.
We're fortunate to have had success, not just in America but worldwide.
'Lucky Day' is what I would call the Shaggy roller-coaster ride. It takes you to different moods. I listen to music in moods.
I'm from a single-parent family. My mom is like my mom and dad. She's my world.
I think the reason I got into the music business was basically for the live aspect of it.
I don't make as many records as other people do because I prefer the live side of it - and my records are so big that they keep me touring for years upon years and years.
Some people get a little shy, you know, and it can take a certain mood or a situation or a vibe for you to relax and come out of your shell.
I live vicariously through my songs.
A lot of true Jamaican artists don't understand the importance of radio so tend not to tap into that as a result.
If I'm not on tour, then I'm sometimes laying down four or five records at a time.
I didn't just sit down and write 'Summer In Kingston' from scratch; it came about from a bunch of songs I already had.
I'm one of those artists that nobody ever sees coming. We started with Virgin in 1993. If you look at the climate of that time in reggae and you were to pick the top five people that'd have a shot at having mainstream success, I was nowhere in that equation at all.
When I was doing 'Hot Shot,' I didn't even have an album deal.
I'm used to people not getting it. I'll make amazing music, but it's convincing people that it's amazing - that's the problem.
The thing about Shaggy's records are those records are very timeless.
'Shaggy' was a nickname before it was ever a stage name. I have no problem with it.
The greatest thing about me is I have always been able to reinvent. We have done that about three or four times with my sound.
I just think, as a people in general, we should always look at ourselves as the underdog, so we should always go harder than the next person.
I would never be about waking up early and do morning radio and TV back to back had I not been in the military, where they are throwing a garbage can in the middle of my squad bed at 5 o'clock in the morning for four years straight.
I cleaned many a toilet.
Even my mom is calling me Shaggy now, which is weird, because Shaggy is more like a character that I play. Shaggy is flamboyant; he's cocky. And I can't live that twenty-four hours a day - hell, no.
I have to be me, which is, don't like a lot of crowds, don't like a lot of attention - kind of being by myself.
I got the name in primary school because my hair was shaggy. And I didn't like it; I thought it was derogatory.
You might be like, 'I want really big hits.' But when you get really big hits, and your label is making $150 million, they are people who are now interested in what you do. They are going to begin to tell you what to do, and so you become important. So your creative freedom - you're not going to have that again.
I go to bed late, and I wake up early; in this game, to win it, you have to do that. The military prepared me to do that: you go to bed late and wake up early.
Ireland kind of reminds me of Jamaicans - there are a lot of Irish people in Jamaica. It's the blend of their easy-going nature, cool mentality, and warmth.
I'm not big on collaborations with 'superstars.' It generally doesn't work for me.
I did a record with Janet Jackson, and it went to the top of the charts, and we had all of these complications, and she couldn't be in the video and couldn't do anything for the record. I went through something similar with Pitbull. I think it works really well for a lot of other artists, but for me, it just doesn't work that well.
I just put people on my records that I think bring something really unique to the song, and that's what's going to make it live over time. Not the fact that an artist might be 'hot' at the time.
You never know where your next scare is coming from. You've just gotta find the courage to face it.Collection: Scare
Although sometimes I know it seems impossible, there ain't no need in drowning in your sorrow. If things are as bad as they can be, you can be sure there'll be a brighter tomorrow.Collection: Sorrow
I'm like a surfer right now. I'm just surfing the wave. Except that I can't swim, so I'm on the board trying to hold on tight.Collection: Swim
I'm addicted to women. Believe me, as Shaggy, after every concert, there's drawers that are dropping.Collection: Believe