Shaggy Interview: Getting to know Mr Boombastic

10 months ago 28th Aug 15:09

After a few years away from the limelight Shaggy is back with his long-awaited Boombastic Collection and so FemaleFirst jumped at the chance to chat to Mr Lover himself and find out what he’s been getting up to over the past few years.

You’re releasing your Boombastic Collection, which is essentially your greatest hits, does this mean you’re calling it a day?

I wish! No, no, no, no no, you still have to put up with me for a little bit longer!

What else can we expect from you?

Well I’m bringing out my greatest hits because they [the record company] were going to do it anyway because every time you have some sort of success everyone wants to put a greatest hits record out and this is like my third one now so I guess something is selling somewhere or they wouldn’t be asking me to do it all over again!

This is the first one that I’m actually in charge of whereas I’ve picked all the songs and did the artwork so it was just great!

How did you decide which tracks made it on to the record?

Well when you say greatest hits, I didn’t want to do it where I put all the ‘hits’ on because there are some songs that are ‘hits’ but are just rubbish like Me Julie - it was just one of those songs but not a ‘classic’ and I wanted to put classics on so that’s why I called it The Boombastic Collection and not my Greatest Hits.

Did you re-record any of the songs?

No. I just put the original recordings on.

What have you been up to since your major comeback in 2001?

I did the underground thing. What had happened after I released Angel and It Wasn’t Me was the core market wasn’t feeling Shaggy anymore because all the core markets from the Dance Hall people knew me from Boombastic and knew me whilst they were growing up, but of course, they have all grown up now.

So then there were these kids who know me from Angel and It Wasn’t Me and they’re thinking; “He’s the pop guy.” So I had to do a core type of album that would get me the core market back. I tried it with Wild Tonight but the record didn’t want to do anything with that and they just left me hanging as they didn’t want to fly me anywhere or set up any interviews and didn’t really want to do anything with the song.

Then when the new president came in I asked him to release me and he did! So I wrote Church Heathen in November and released it in December and it was number one by January and spent 19 weeks at number one within the core market and because it was such a big underground hit I decided to just do an underground-type album which was called Intoxication.

Then I got the award for Best Reggae Album and Best Reggae Video and realised that I needed to release another mainstream song but I wasn’t signed to a label so I decided to use the UEFA cup as an avenue to get a hit record. I did Feel The Rush which debuted in the top 10 and by the next week it was at number one in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and top five throughout Europe. It didn’t get played in the UK because you guys didn’t qualify!

Lets not talk about that! What are you up to within the next year then?

For the next 12 months I totally have my eyes on the mainstream charts now that I’ve done the underground thing.

You joined Cyndi Lauper on stage at the Sonnet Music Festival last year, how did you find that?

Cyndi and I are great friends. We met at a thing called Night At The Proms and every night we drank and partied very hard. She’s an old rocker and an incredible artist and we have a great rapport together and it was just great so every time we run into each other on stage we just go nuts!

You’ve been around since the 90’s, what has been your greatest achievement so far?

I would think Hot Shot - going diamond is incredible - 15 million records is a lot of records and puts you in the category of selling the numbers of Bob Marley and that’s just a very royal place to be.

What would you still like to achieve?

It changes all the time, if you asked me this a year ago I would have said ‘well these critics are saying I can’t do this so I want to go and do it, I have to prove them wrong. So whatever the critics come up with, that’s the fuel to my fire, right now it’s getting back into the charts. It’s not going to be easy though because I’m carrying the burden of Reggae!

How did you get into the music industry?

Just because I’m Jamaican and I just got the bug.

Has the industry changed since you first started out?

Everything has changed. Musically it’s a little bit different because where Reggae music was and where it is today is just different vibes and music has gotten a little bit darker and you don’t see as many reggae artists in the charts now.

Would you say it’s got better or worse then?

I think it has gotten worse and for a minute it was better but now its got worse. It was better because radio used to feature a flood or Reggae artists but now you can’t even get one played!

What is your opinion of the British Indie scene?

Anything that is not pop is good to see - not that I have anything against pop music - I just think that too much of one thing could not be good… lets mix it up a bit.

If you weren’t a singer what would you be doing?

I don’t know, I might be the owner of a strip joint or something!

We ask everyone we interview to come up with a question for the next person we interview....and US rock band Sam and Amanda want to know; “If you could do a duet with any female singer who would it be?”

Britney Spears! Because when she came out I didn’t think I would be sitting here saying to myself that I’m a Britney fan but she’s just proven herself to me and on that last album she’s really proven herself despite getting a lot of flack for it. I thought it was some of her better work and I thought Piece Of Me was an incredible song and she delivered despite the fact that she was having some personal problems.

What would you like to ask the next person I interview?

Where were you on Saturday night because I was waiting for you.

Find out who Shaggy would like to collaborate with very soon!

 

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