Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 3: You know it's course love Team Supreme is with men.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, hello, hey man, I'm doing man, I'm excited.
Speaker 5: I'm good.
Speaker 3: Too, I'm excited. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think I think we're allowed to stay excited as
Speaker 2: the person that is on every zoom pitch. I think
Speaker 2: everyone's excited. It's the equivalent of say Macbeth in the theater,
Speaker 2: not be on a zoom and say everyone's excited. It's like,
Speaker 2: that's the depth nail, not.
Speaker 4: To apply it to every zoom. This is this is
Speaker 4: specifically an exciting zoom.
Speaker 3: Right, this is not a business meeting. So yeah, you know, Suger, Steve, whatever.
Speaker 6: Bro, Hi, I'm mayor, Hi Team Supreme.
Speaker 3: Hi, Shaggy, how's everything doing.
Speaker 6: I'm good?
Speaker 2: Just give it away, now, give it away now, Steve,
Speaker 2: Let's edit that. Let's edit that. Hey Steve, how you doing, bro?
Speaker 3: Hey Shaggy? Frantic a little man, how's it going down?
Speaker 3: There was Li Man finishing up my dinner. I want
Speaker 3: to be eating on camera. Yeah, just let it go
Speaker 3: to a black screen.
Speaker 2: I think Fante should be like the neighbor on home
Speaker 2: where we just.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 6: I think the fact that we were talking off camera
Speaker 6: before you got in kind of got into.
Speaker 7: We never supposed to talk before he gets on cameras.
Speaker 7: What are you talking about?
Speaker 3: No, we didn't.
Speaker 7: No, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 6: No, it wasn't me. We weren't talking about anything other
Speaker 6: than the fact that I was complimented where she lives.
Speaker 3: You like her background?
Speaker 7: No, no, no, he was shaving mistake. It's cool we
Speaker 7: get in. You're breaking the rude Shaggy to introduce.
Speaker 2: Okay, fuck it all right, Shaggy is on the shows.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're part of.
Speaker 4: Telling you I'm in Oh, I'm in the merk Inglewood.
Speaker 4: But he wasn't really making fun of that. He's making
Speaker 4: fun of the fact that I live in California, which
Speaker 4: is has a you know, it has has some ship
Speaker 4: with it. But he has a home in Florida. So
Speaker 4: I told him he needs to step back.
Speaker 3: Oh, you're not You're not a California person at all.
Speaker 6: No, it's not that I'm not at California. I'm just
Speaker 6: looking at it. I said, there's only one box ticked.
Speaker 6: It's great weather. You get up and you feel amazing.
Speaker 6: But if you sit down and take the rest of boxes,
Speaker 6: I'm like, you know, there's month slides, fires, I'm.
Speaker 4: Like, there's act there's Karen Bass, there's gathering.
Speaker 7: I'm like, don't even.
Speaker 6: Know, there's so many, there's so instinct. But you know,
Speaker 6: we we we we agree to disagree.
Speaker 7: Yes, very true.
Speaker 2: All right, So technically speaking, I should do a proper introduction,
Speaker 2: all right, So I will say that I've we probably
Speaker 2: had a conversation with every musician, every walk of life,
Speaker 2: but I don't think I've ever had an in depth
Speaker 2: conversation with anyone in the in the dance hall reggae world.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you discount super Cats complaining that I
Speaker 2: wasn't good on drums at the roots, jamp.
Speaker 8: Don't feel better, don't feel aboud it complains about a
Speaker 8: lot of people.
Speaker 6: Don't feel bad. He cussed me out totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, someone told me that it's actually a badge of
Speaker 2: honor if if you cuss, it is it is.
Speaker 6: It is. And I'm not cutting. But I'll tell you what.
Speaker 6: Super Cat was one of the first person to give
Speaker 6: me microphone when I was in Brooklyn back and Flatbush,
Speaker 6: back in the days when I was a young guy,
Speaker 6: and he would bring the microphone and give it to
Speaker 6: me because everybody's fighting, you know, just spit on the mic,
Speaker 6: and he always give me so he could say anything
Speaker 6: about me. I'm telling you that because he was that guy.
Speaker 2: It's funny you say that I really wanted to do
Speaker 2: this episode, because I mean, I've said it a few
Speaker 2: times before, but our guest today saved the roots. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I will say that if it weren't for our guest today,
Speaker 2: none of this. I'm not saying none of this would
Speaker 2: be possible, but I know for a fact, very directly
Speaker 2: that the fruits and that overfloweth monetary nature of our
Speaker 2: guests and his art for him definitely came.
Speaker 3: As a an.
Speaker 2: Eleventh hour saving grace slash life wrath if you will,
Speaker 2: for my band, which you know, I will say to
Speaker 2: the end of the time that Shaggy is alright with me.
Speaker 2: He's done so many legendary things. I mean, he's so
Speaker 2: over forty million units, has over eight hundred million streams.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's collaborated with the best. I mean, name it,
Speaker 3: from Shaka.
Speaker 2: Khan the Eve to Janet Jackson, Cardi b Max Dey
Speaker 2: Priest back to Levy to to the Maytals. Dude, even
Speaker 2: I mean, right now, the gold standards to get billions
Speaker 2: of streams on TikTok, he's done that as well, like
Speaker 2: you know, and right now we're here to celebrate his
Speaker 2: new project. First of all, I mean you and Sting together.
Speaker 2: That's all right, we already gave it away at the
Speaker 2: top of the show. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Shaggy.
Speaker 6: Yes very much. Question you know, you know what I
Speaker 6: gotta you put a lot of a lot of weight
Speaker 6: on my shoulder their quest because it's not the first
Speaker 6: time I've heard you said that, And yeah, I'm meaning
Speaker 6: to see you and talk to you about that. You're
Speaker 6: putting a lot of that's a lot of weight on
Speaker 6: my should mind.
Speaker 7: People to his story.
Speaker 2: But basically, you know, I think with the way that
Speaker 2: a successful record label can operate, I mean, yes, everybody wants,
Speaker 2: you know, a vast array of artists on their label
Speaker 2: and whatnot, but you know the label also needs like
Speaker 2: and earner. And you know it wasn't me was so
Speaker 2: inescapable in.
Speaker 3: Ninety eight ninety nine.
Speaker 2: That basically we were kind of wondering where, like we'd
Speaker 2: spend a lot of money on Things Fall Apart, And
Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of like if you've ever seen
Speaker 2: what's a Adam Sandler's movie that I thought he should
Speaker 2: have got nominated for Oscar for or Uncut Gyms. The
Speaker 2: industry is a lot like Uncut Gyms where you got
Speaker 2: to rob Peter to pay Paul. So oftentimes, you know,
Speaker 2: I'll read about my favorite records getting made and they'll
Speaker 2: say like, well, we have to take some money from
Speaker 2: the Doobie Brothers project to pay for this project, and da.
Speaker 3: Da da da.
Speaker 2: In our case, I will say that a good portion
Speaker 2: of the promotion that we had to do for Things
Speaker 2: Fall Apart, the videos we had to do, the promotions,
Speaker 2: the ads we had to take.
Speaker 3: Out, all those things.
Speaker 2: Definitely, our an R said you guys better be lucky
Speaker 2: for a shaggy success because this is how we're paying
Speaker 2: for your budget.
Speaker 6: So you know, you know what it is to quest
Speaker 6: it was it was a very strange climate. That whole
Speaker 6: company was a strange climate, you know. It was you
Speaker 6: really didn't have an urban department. We didn't in that company.
Speaker 6: A lot of people need to know that it is
Speaker 6: a very pop based and I was lucky to have
Speaker 6: these records that started as none of those songs were
Speaker 6: singles or I never picked as single, but they ended
Speaker 6: up becoming big pop records and really saved me because
Speaker 6: when I came in there, you know, there was no
Speaker 6: but I wasn't the same space as the roots, you know,
Speaker 6: I was not.
Speaker 5: I wasn't getting budgets either.
Speaker 6: It just so happened that we had a song I
Speaker 6: was right at the minute to be dropped. And then
Speaker 6: because the first two singles came out was Dancing Shout
Speaker 6: and Oh, and they flopped and a DJ out of
Speaker 6: Hawaii started to play it wasn't me. After the fifth play,
Speaker 6: it just lit up his phone and it just continued
Speaker 6: to spread. And that's what saved my ass because I
Speaker 6: was about to be on the chopping block, you know,
Speaker 6: just like just like you guys, it was just what
Speaker 6: it was. And they weren't planning to spend money because
Speaker 6: it was just not a company that really was focused
Speaker 6: around marketing urban music. I just it was just not
Speaker 6: that kind of a climate in that company. It wasn't
Speaker 6: It wasn't that.
Speaker 4: And did you ever skip the line and go right
Speaker 4: to pop? Right because that was it felt like it
Speaker 4: didn't have right.
Speaker 6: It actually went to pop and then came back.
Speaker 3: To earth that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's just it's just it was like it became
Speaker 6: pop and then you know, you know what is the
Speaker 6: clubs was sucking with it so much that you know,
Speaker 6: urban raiders say, well, you know the club is doing,
Speaker 6: we might as well play it, you know, we know,
Speaker 6: you know, we know the White Stations is playing it.
Speaker 6: You know, but really and truly in every ghetto club
Speaker 6: they're saying, it wasn't me, so let me rock with it,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. And if you think about it,
Speaker 6: Angel wasn't as lucky. Angel continued to stay pop and
Speaker 6: didn't get back, didn't go back in it because it
Speaker 6: was never a club joint, so it didn't really connect
Speaker 6: like that, you know, while bombasketballso from a previous album
Speaker 6: that was also club and then ended up going to
Speaker 6: pop and then urban urban started playing it again. So
Speaker 6: it was just a strange climate at that time, especially
Speaker 6: for Rega.
Speaker 2: Who was that DJ, because that DJ is also the
Speaker 2: one that the one in Hawaii is also the one
Speaker 2: that broke in all my life for Casey and Jojo
Speaker 2: and Jojo they have the same situation where they were
Speaker 2: about to you know that one's about to flop then,
Speaker 2: and that's the thing, like I don't think. Well, I
Speaker 2: mean like, like you can also explain it since like ninety seven,
Speaker 2: there was one movie that came out that sort of
Speaker 2: explained how radio works called Before the Music Dies, that
Speaker 2: came out like two thousand and four.
Speaker 3: But you know, ninety seven when.
Speaker 2: I guess what I can call the clear channel era
Speaker 2: of radio comes into play, where now people have to
Speaker 2: pre program the music like right, weeks weeks ahead of time.
Speaker 4: Now it's blowing my mind because I'm like pop pop
Speaker 4: DJs don't break records, right, So the fact that this
Speaker 4: one did and then broke these two black records that
Speaker 4: start go back to a black radio when black radio
Speaker 4: usually starts, it's it's blowing.
Speaker 7: It's a mind blower.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, actually, let me ask you because I mean, I
Speaker 2: know you haven't been on terrestrial radio for a minute,
Speaker 2: but just during the time period when you were on radio,
Speaker 2: like how far advanced, Like when do they actually start
Speaker 2: feeding the machine and saying like, Okay, we're gonna play
Speaker 2: this be song fourteen times a day and they pick
Speaker 2: this specific time like they do playlist. Yeah, when does
Speaker 2: that programming start.
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, it's a process.
Speaker 4: It's also like record reps coming to the station from
Speaker 4: that was a big thing, you know, when it comes
Speaker 4: to y'all being represented in a way, right, it's like
Speaker 4: what the record rep is selling, what's their priority, and
Speaker 4: then once it's the priority, depending on the artists, sometimes
Speaker 4: since it's a priority and it's an artist and maybe
Speaker 4: the label, you know, it's all kind of dynamics.
Speaker 7: But it's never it's never.
Speaker 4: Shaggy has always been different in that way because it's
Speaker 4: never been pop breaking records and just naturally that happening.
Speaker 4: That's a natural thing, and that doesn't happen right Shaggy.
Speaker 6: I think a lot of it boils down to the
Speaker 6: demographic you know. I mean when you look at at
Speaker 6: that time, they're going to look at what urban music
Speaker 6: is selling, you know, and then they're going to look
Speaker 6: at what reggae is. Now. There's a big argument now
Speaker 6: where they say that reggae is you know, less than
Speaker 6: five percent of the global market share. You know, so
Speaker 6: you can't expect any major company or any company to
Speaker 6: be putting major money into any act that is less
Speaker 6: than five percent of the market share. My argument to
Speaker 6: that is, when has it ever not been less than
Speaker 6: five percent? You know when I when I was selling
Speaker 6: forty million records, it was three percent. You know, after me,
Speaker 6: then you had Sean Paul and everybody it became popular.
Speaker 6: Before then, it was never on radio. I was the
Speaker 6: guy that got it on radio. So it was always
Speaker 6: less than five percent, you know what I mean, nothing
Speaker 6: has ever changed on that. And these record companies they
Speaker 6: invest based on that. So it's not gut, it's you know,
Speaker 6: so when when I'm doing these numbers and they're like,
Speaker 6: oh shit, we didn't know that could happen, and so
Speaker 6: they ended up chasing. Now you sell ten million records,
Speaker 6: you think they're going to be like, well, you know,
Speaker 6: he just did it. Let's try and let's invest again
Speaker 6: and do that. They're looking at it like, yeah, that
Speaker 6: I ain't never got one off. That's one off, and
Speaker 6: they can think of it as that.
Speaker 2: Now where we are now today, you're seeing other genres
Speaker 2: as sort of with the DNA of dance hang reggae,
Speaker 2: Like I know that African music, okay, so I have
Speaker 2: to call it West African.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm just saying you a lot of it
Speaker 4: is from Nigeria. Now we don't get into afrobeat versus afrobeats,
Speaker 4: and I want no parts of that.
Speaker 2: But what I'm basically asking is like between reggae tone
Speaker 2: and West African music and now with dance hall, are
Speaker 2: you finding it now?
Speaker 3: Are people generally trying to lump.
Speaker 2: Like an entire genre of non Americanized rap, non Americanized
Speaker 2: pop into this mold that you now have to fit
Speaker 2: into in twenty twenty two, where say, you know, the
Speaker 2: average Joe from Kansas might not know the difference between
Speaker 2: the music that you're doing and the music that Jave
Speaker 2: Balvin was doing and the music that Yeah Yeah or
Speaker 2: Bad Bunny or or you know or whoever is.
Speaker 6: What's so crazy is there? You know there's a history
Speaker 6: on this. You know that Yankee called me sometime last
Speaker 6: year and asked me because there was a documentary shot
Speaker 6: supposed to be on Netflix that really talks about reggaeton.
Speaker 6: He couldn't tell the story of reggaeton because he was there,
Speaker 6: it was before him, but he knew that he knew that,
Speaker 6: I know, you know what I mean? So I and
Speaker 6: and and the starting of regaton started by a guy
Speaker 6: by the name of El Gringo out out from Puerto
Speaker 6: Rico out of Brooklyn, and El Gringo he went to
Speaker 6: prison and then there and then El Henero right ended
Speaker 6: up doing dance all records in Spanish right, which was
Speaker 6: put out on VP. And there was a guy Carl Miller,
Speaker 6: who literally was the guy that was producing these songs
Speaker 6: for VP Records. L Naro ended up blowing up. Now,
Speaker 6: the crazy part about it is El Noro and I
Speaker 6: went to Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn and we were in
Speaker 6: the lunch room, and the lunch room had the Puerto
Speaker 6: Rican click, the Panamanian click, the Jamaican click, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean, the Haitian click. And we would be
Speaker 6: on the book benches and we'll beat and spit freestyles
Speaker 6: and people get around right exactly, and Elenoral would be
Speaker 6: over there doing the same thing in Spanish out of there,
Speaker 6: and so him and I that's how we became friends
Speaker 6: because I used to spit it on the bench and
Speaker 6: over there, and then he started to make these dance
Speaker 6: on these old Chaparine record Now, the beat of regeton
Speaker 6: is called dem boold you know that quest right, So
Speaker 6: it's called it's called yes, it comes from its It
Speaker 6: comes from Chaparax Stemba now Elena All and them used
Speaker 6: to do these reggae records, these stance All records over
Speaker 6: in Spanish and that became Spanish reggae. Carl at VP
Speaker 6: ended up calling it reggae tone, and through mispronunciation over
Speaker 6: here it became guitar. That is the beginning of what
Speaker 6: is reggae tar, which started out.
Speaker 3: Of that d You see our faces right.
Speaker 5: Now, like Tago Calderon and those guys.
Speaker 6: Was that it was after Tego was after this. There
Speaker 6: was a guy up out of out of Browns called
Speaker 6: Gunghi Rivera who used to have these big nightclubs and
Speaker 6: he was the one that used to promote a lot
Speaker 6: of these Spanish reggae acts right that used to be
Speaker 6: uptown around that time. Gungi was was a major force
Speaker 6: in the development of it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 6: And that was what it is.
Speaker 7: Are you in this documentary?
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, they called me to tell the story because
Speaker 6: you know, in fairness to a lot of these newer acts,
Speaker 6: they don't know that story.
Speaker 3: So you literally were there to witness like the incubation.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was there to the whole thing. I was
Speaker 6: part of the whole thing.
Speaker 4: This is why I'm starting, This is why I'm excited
Speaker 4: to say he's a national treasure.
Speaker 3: Why doesn't the world know this?
Speaker 6: Nobody asked, but it is documented. I can tell you
Speaker 6: it is true. Now say, say, for instance, when we
Speaker 6: did Afrobeat, Now let's go to the Africa, West Africa,
Speaker 6: as you would say. I used to go to Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania,
Speaker 6: all these places, and I would play stadiums because the
Speaker 6: main music of those country was dance all. It was
Speaker 6: not zook or or you wasn't here in Felakute or
Speaker 6: any of these guys. It was dance all in the
Speaker 6: streets and the clubs of Nigeria or any any of
Speaker 6: these places. It's dance all. And so we would go.
Speaker 6: I would go there, play stadiums, and a lot of
Speaker 6: these artists would would open for us. You know, you're
Speaker 6: talking a lot of these artists that you see a
Speaker 6: big art the Afrobean artist opens on a lot of
Speaker 6: shows down there. Wow, you know what I mean? We
Speaker 6: could go back even further. When you look at you know,
Speaker 6: there's a lot of opening You're talking about the Spice
Speaker 6: Girl open for Shaggy and in domestic you know what
Speaker 6: I mean. You know, I mean in sync. We used
Speaker 6: to do road shows in Europe at that time where
Speaker 6: they open for us. So it's it's been it.
Speaker 7: Is Man Kennedy Center, Anna.
Speaker 6: It's been a whole journey of how that that would
Speaker 6: be going because I've been good for thirty odd years,
Speaker 6: you know, of of doing that. So in the afrobeat,
Speaker 6: if you listen it, it is really influenced by dance
Speaker 6: all right, even though they have developed their own sound, right,
Speaker 6: but it was really kind of influence from that.
Speaker 9: What is the correlation or the I guess the relationship
Speaker 9: between like dancehall and also what is called lover's rock,
Speaker 9: like I guess the so lovers rock.
Speaker 6: Okay, So if you look at what Jamaican music started from,
Speaker 6: and start from a beat called mental mental into ska
Speaker 6: Scott into what's known as rock steady exactly, and it's
Speaker 6: really about the shuffle that makes it go chick, chick chick,
Speaker 6: and then there you go reggae chi chi. It's a
Speaker 6: different vibe of how it's done. It's really about the
Speaker 6: tempo and the feel of it that moves it from
Speaker 6: a ska to a rock steady and rock Steady is.
Speaker 6: Out of rock Steady came what is known as lovers rock.
Speaker 6: What lovers rock is, it's that one drop reggae and
Speaker 6: people sing these beautiful love songs, and white became lovers
Speaker 6: rock is because they used to do a lot of covers,
Speaker 6: like a lot of these big reggae songs we're called.
Speaker 6: Take for instance, you look at Let's Just Go, Let's
Speaker 6: Just Go, even one of the biggest all right, and
Speaker 6: these are white boys, and and it blew up because
Speaker 6: they white, but it also blew up because they were
Speaker 6: just great covers. Red Red Wine by U B. Forty
Speaker 6: was originally Neil Diamond that red Run, but they did
Speaker 6: it over in reggae and it became now Neil Diamond.
Speaker 6: When he's singing, he does reggae version.
Speaker 3: Right better.
Speaker 5: Yeah, knowledge, I didn't even know that was a cover.
Speaker 5: I didn't know that was his reggae.
Speaker 6: Sounds like I can't help Falling in love right right
Speaker 6: was Elvis Presley, but was done by U. B. Forty.
Speaker 6: Then then you have the other flip side of it,
Speaker 6: you know, like girls just want to have fun. Cyndey
Speaker 6: Lapool was based Drummer Based was done by Slian Robbie
Speaker 6: to the biggest you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So there's there's a lot, Jimmy, you're telling me that
Speaker 2: Slie Robbie are the rhythm section there.
Speaker 6: There were session musicians in in in uh in America.
Speaker 2: I know that, but I could have thought Philly's on
Speaker 2: the Hooters. Why know they wrote it, but I don't know.
Speaker 6: But the drummond bass of it, the groove of that
Speaker 6: was like, right, that's why, Cindy, but you might have
Speaker 6: to join Spreme and then and then even with with
Speaker 6: with songs like of course, you know, Steve the Wonder
Speaker 6: wrote a lot of of of a couple of songs
Speaker 6: for the Third World also yes, uh right, yes, yes,
Speaker 6: And a lot of people think that now that we
Speaker 6: find loved, which was done by a heavy d which
Speaker 6: was also made popular by Third World, but the original,
Speaker 6: the original was the O J.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, we get yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So it's it's when you think of the blend of
Speaker 6: music of how stuff is and even those early Grace
Speaker 6: Stones records which were which were sly robbis yeah, totally,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean, Compass Point Gwyn Guthrie. So
Speaker 6: you look at the building of Island Records and what
Speaker 6: it is was was reggae based. You look at somebody
Speaker 6: like Chris Blackwell who founded Too and YouTube was a
Speaker 6: it was a YouTube was a folk band when he
Speaker 6: discovered those guys and he transformed them into a rock band.
Speaker 6: You know, it was kind of a Christian style folk band.
Speaker 2: Wait, you're dropping so many bombs right now. Just to
Speaker 2: make sure, you said, Gwen Gutthie. So you're saying, ain't
Speaker 2: nothing going on? But the rent is also yes, Sam, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: ain't no damn that makes total sense. Man, Yeah, yeah, okay, Wait, I.
Speaker 3: Want more education, but I got to know your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was your very first musical memory?
Speaker 6: My first music memory was my grandmother used to play.
Speaker 6: We were from a poor neighborhood in Kingston, Raytown and
Speaker 6: from a place called with small fishing village in Raytown
Speaker 6: where I was on Charlotte Street. We live in one room.
Speaker 6: My grandmother used to play a lot of radio because
Speaker 6: we didn't have television, and I, as a katie, used
Speaker 6: to think that the guy was in the radio singing.
Speaker 6: I had no idea there was records. I used to
Speaker 6: listen to these really wonderful records. But I remember writing
Speaker 6: my own song, and it's called your Mind. My very
Speaker 6: first song. I was probably i'd say around eight nine
Speaker 6: years old or some shit. I said, You're a mine,
Speaker 6: You're a mine, You're a mine, your mine, You're really really.
Speaker 10: Mine, and my love come, I love is ever last,
Speaker 10: and your freedom line of view, and flower you light
Speaker 10: up my life every hour.
Speaker 6: And as long as I can't remember the lyrics after that,
Speaker 6: but that was my first thing I ever written, just
Speaker 6: in my head by listening to the radio. So the
Speaker 6: radio was a comfort for me where music was concerned,
Speaker 6: and I just really listened all of those songs, and
Speaker 6: there was songs like Mahelia Jackson was a big thing
Speaker 6: in my house, even early songs like I don't know
Speaker 6: if you know, you guys familiar with Toots and the Maytows,
Speaker 6: you know, yeah, exactly a big Toots fan. My grandmother was,
Speaker 6: you know. I mean, so a lot of these records.
Speaker 6: Bing Crosby was a big thing. That King Cole was
Speaker 6: a big thing in my in my household. So on
Speaker 6: Sundays in Jamaica, it goes that type of music goes
Speaker 6: well with chicken and rice and peace, which is when
Speaker 6: we were doing these Sinatra records, These Sinatra records. You know,
Speaker 6: we're repertoires that I too, and growing up on Sundays
Speaker 6: because reggae in Jamaica didn't start playing till the I
Speaker 6: would say probably around the eighties.
Speaker 4: Somebody told me that in Jamaica, that's the first big
Speaker 4: superstar in Jamaica was like Bob Marley for real, Like
Speaker 4: they were like, for real, that's the.
Speaker 6: Large, large largest, he's the large. Yeah, he's he's the
Speaker 6: largest one. But there were people like, for instance, reggae
Speaker 6: music was looked down on. It was get I was.
Speaker 2: Going to ask, how how does that work with Okay,
Speaker 2: every American, every j American that I know is super
Speaker 2: super conservative mm hmm. And you know, I always wanted
Speaker 2: to know how did Jamaican natives that are like the
Speaker 2: parents of my Jamaican friends who are strictly Christian don't
Speaker 2: like you know, uh, secular music and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: How does that message with the culture of like Bob
Speaker 2: Marley and like was that the gangster rap of the time?
Speaker 6: War Now, any Jamaican you know that is in that
Speaker 6: kind of I tity for the lack of a better word,
Speaker 6: kind of a person they were uptowners. So there's two things.
Speaker 6: There's downtown and there's uptown. The uptown are the more
Speaker 6: privileged class of people. You know what I'm saying. There's
Speaker 6: the crazy story that Bob Marley lived on a street
Speaker 6: called Hope Road, where is where Tough Gong is back
Speaker 6: in the days. That's the same street that the King's houses,
Speaker 6: which is where the Queen's resident is. Oh, that's where
Speaker 6: that's the same that's the same street that the that
Speaker 6: the Prime Minister's residences are. You know what I mean
Speaker 6: when you look, when you look at it, that house
Speaker 6: that Bob Marley lived in fifty six Hope World was actually.
Speaker 11: Purchased by Chris Blackwell, which was a white Jamaican that
Speaker 11: lived around the corner at a place called Terra Nova
Speaker 11: that is now a hotel, which was his original home.
Speaker 6: So it took it took a British, well, a Jamaica
Speaker 6: white guy to actually buy that because there's a rastafar
Speaker 6: and Bob wouldn't have been able to purchase that because
Speaker 6: it was because it was what's known as classism in
Speaker 6: Jamaica back in the days. So then so when you
Speaker 6: look at Yellow Man and these guys, those guys at
Speaker 6: one point in Jamaica. If you were a certain color,
Speaker 6: you couldn't come past the halfway tree clock because that's
Speaker 6: how it was because you ain't from that class. After
Speaker 6: a certain hour, you're not up there. This is this
Speaker 6: is years.
Speaker 4: Because to be from that class you had to be
Speaker 4: lighter and more affiliated with exactly.
Speaker 6: So for me, I'm from the British rule the it's
Speaker 6: just it's just if you're talking about colonialism, you know
Speaker 6: from that that's inherited now, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So as it goes, you see people coming into all
Speaker 6: of this where you see uptowners now started to do
Speaker 6: dance all you know what I'm saying. Like like take
Speaker 6: for instance, like a Sean Paul is up he's from
Speaker 6: the uptown. Junagan is from the uptown. Because those guys
Speaker 6: are from parents that you know, when Bob Barley made money,
Speaker 6: he went to Whole pro that's uptown. Yeah, Junigan. A
Speaker 6: guy like Junigan would go to you know, a good
Speaker 6: school and goes to while another set of people, now
Speaker 6: they're from the streets of the streets, the hood of
Speaker 6: the hood. You thought, well, seeve you gotten deep on
Speaker 6: the gardens your top of the hood, the hood, the
Speaker 6: hood you know what I'm saying. But after a while,
Speaker 6: it's kind of became one when when the uptown kids
Speaker 6: started to do it, then it started to become accepted.
Speaker 9: You mentioned Yellow Man earlier, and I've read uh some
Speaker 9: like stuff about him, just about how some of the
Speaker 9: struggles he faced, like being because he was albino, and like.
Speaker 6: It was a bino. The crazy thing about Yellow Man
Speaker 6: is here's an albino guy. That's a guy that made
Speaker 6: me want to get into music.
Speaker 5: That's right, Okay, gotcha right?
Speaker 6: Because I saw I went to a dance at Skateland,
Speaker 6: which is a popular venue, and he spit his lyrics
Speaker 6: and walked out. Yeah, well some other I think it
Speaker 6: was I get to married. He had all the big
Speaker 6: records at the time, walked and spit his lyrics and
Speaker 6: walk out, and the whole dance walked out with him.
Speaker 6: I was like, damn, I want to be that guy.
Speaker 6: But but the crazy thing that he was an albino,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean, which is also looked down
Speaker 6: at in Jamaica. No, you know, he was like yo,
Speaker 6: they called him. And he was at a place called
Speaker 6: Poor Hopes at the time, which is kind of an
Speaker 6: orphanage in a way that it came aroun right and
Speaker 6: he rose out of that to become one of the superstar.
Speaker 6: And now I always say to shift culture, it takes
Speaker 6: a superstar, that means a star with superhero like talent, charisma, work, ethic,
Speaker 6: charm right to shift because if you look at Yellow Man,
Speaker 6: he didn't have a movement behind him, but the world
Speaker 6: stopping took notice because he was a superstar, a star
Speaker 6: with superhero like talent, chaparanks. He walked in the room.
Speaker 6: You want to know who the fuck is that? That's
Speaker 6: a superstar? You got stars, and stars will okay promote culture,
Speaker 6: but are they gonna shift culture? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: And those are the guys that shift culture with superhero
Speaker 6: like talent right where they don't need lights and they
Speaker 6: don't need cranes throwing them out. They don't even need
Speaker 6: a record company spending money. They just got that shit.
Speaker 6: That swade they walk in and they open them to
Speaker 6: everybody be like, who the fuck is that? That motherfucker
Speaker 6: is the shit? That's what those guys are. Those are
Speaker 6: that's the stars. And you have people who knew how
Speaker 6: to find those. If you look at say you look
Speaker 6: at everybody, say you look at all the billionaires. Now
Speaker 6: you look at and question. You can understand this. You
Speaker 6: got Kanye and then you got No No, but you
Speaker 6: could understand. You're gonna understand what I'm saying. I'm playing. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you got you got Kanye and you got Rihanna. Both
Speaker 6: of them are billionaires or whatever. Right? Who is their lego? Jay? Right? Right?
Speaker 6: And you look at you look at Nikki, and you
Speaker 6: look at Drake. Who is their lego? Okay? You look
Speaker 6: at fifty, You look at eminem you look you look
Speaker 6: at uh A Snoop, who is his lego? Dray? You
Speaker 6: look at Lisha Keys. Lisia Keys arguably one of the greatest,
Speaker 6: you know, songwriter, singer, songwriter. But let's let's face it.
Speaker 6: She got Clive Davis her first she had She didn't
Speaker 6: have to have a worry like me and you was
Speaker 6: where we gotta sit down and worry about whether we
Speaker 6: got budgets or we got marketing. And she got all
Speaker 6: of that. Clive major shadow of that. And guess what
Speaker 6: her first interview was, Oprah. And if you think about
Speaker 6: it now, who is our lego? Rick rick You guys
Speaker 6: in the half leg Ricky guys in the half the lego,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. So, and I'm not against
Speaker 6: the leg up. I'm for it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: But in our culture, they have not been those opportunities
Speaker 6: a lot.
Speaker 7: Well, you're giving the layup, you're giving it now.
Speaker 6: So that's all I do. If you look at the
Speaker 6: if you look at the pattern of things that I do.
Speaker 6: I did Summertime with an unknown artist named Rayvon Right.
Speaker 6: I did It Wasn't Me with an unknown artist named
Speaker 6: Rick Ra. I did Angel with an unknown artist named Ravon.
Speaker 6: I did I Need Your Love with two unknown artists
Speaker 6: named Mohambi and Fadi. I did Banana with Ann which
Speaker 6: is the billion dollar, the two billion stream on TikTok
Speaker 6: with an unknown artist name named Conqueror. And then I
Speaker 6: just did Spice of one hundred and fifty million streams.
Speaker 6: So I always look for that. Yeah, I look for
Speaker 6: those records, those artists that have that thing, and I
Speaker 6: go and I put that in there, and I make
Speaker 6: those type of records because I'm not privileged to have
Speaker 6: budgets and rollouts, you know what I'm saying. So I
Speaker 6: just do what I can.
Speaker 2: This is already one of the half hour and it's
Speaker 2: probably one of the greatest educations that I've had of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two from a person that's watched the Heart.
Speaker 2: They fall like a billion times, is okay? So if
Speaker 2: you are trying to establish yourself and not go to America,
Speaker 2: there's just a difference between. You know, half of the
Speaker 2: hip hop world came from Jamaica, but they had to
Speaker 2: come to New York for us to shine. But if
Speaker 2: you're in Jamaica and you want to get put on,
Speaker 2: what is the route?
Speaker 3: Like what's can you walk me through?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 2: I know it's different now because of like digital colonialism,
Speaker 2: like you do one viral thing on YouTube and then
Speaker 2: maybe make it, But say, okay, in the eighties, if
Speaker 2: you want to get put on, how does what's the
Speaker 2: what's the maze?
Speaker 5: The sort of had a circuits.
Speaker 3: Journey.
Speaker 6: Yes, well to me, I'm glad you said now and then,
Speaker 6: because it's totally different now than what it was then.
Speaker 6: You know, back then it was highly it was highly
Speaker 6: dependent on the sound system. So the sound system was
Speaker 6: where you would go and freestyle. This is where we're
Speaker 6: a super cat these guys come from. So you have
Speaker 6: the Kilimanjaro, you have King Tubby's, you have Johnny's sound system,
Speaker 6: you have all these sound systems. Those sound systems were
Speaker 6: what the ghetto kids could get on and spit. So
Speaker 6: they'll have these street dances, and on these street dances, anybody,
Speaker 6: if you were good in the neighborhood and you and
Speaker 6: you spitting on the streets and people are hearing you,
Speaker 6: you create your little fan base. And it was once
Speaker 6: a community. No, you get on that mic and you
Speaker 6: get heard, you know what I mean. They used to
Speaker 6: have a thing called the Tasties talent contests, which was
Speaker 6: also a big way for people to get discovered back
Speaker 6: in Jamaica, back in the early days, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean. So the sound system was where it was
Speaker 6: where because I even start I started on a sound
Speaker 6: system out of Brooklyn too at the same time. That's
Speaker 6: how I ended up on Gibralto sound System and created
Speaker 6: my bus with in Brooklyn where I was at you know,
Speaker 6: Starlight Ballroom, Builtmore Ballroom, all of that at that time,
Speaker 6: and created my own little buzz and my own little name.
Speaker 6: When I started doing Big Up and Mompy and all
Speaker 6: those records, you know what I'm saying. But I started
Speaker 6: for onsound systems. So that was it. Nowadays they got this.
Speaker 6: You know, you don't need to like these kids artists.
Speaker 6: Now they'll do work like you know you when you
Speaker 6: were promoting the roots. I'm sure you traveled all over
Speaker 6: the world and did regional radio and shit like that.
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying. They don't do that. Now
Speaker 6: they do a click of the button and say, hey,
Speaker 6: there goes promo.
Speaker 5: But it's a different challenge. I mean, they don't.
Speaker 9: We don't do like the radio and stuff, but it
Speaker 9: is you can press that click of a button. But
Speaker 9: the bottleneck is now everyone can press that button. So
Speaker 9: now you're fighting for the attention even if you don't
Speaker 9: you know, have the budgets or whatever, the talent with
Speaker 9: the attention or the talent, right, you're just fighting for
Speaker 9: the attention because everyone but you see, I.
Speaker 6: Disagree in some in one sense, I agree that there's
Speaker 6: a lot of them. But if your true talent, you
Speaker 6: could get through, because if you look at it, there's
Speaker 6: a lot of bullshit. You know what I'm saying. If
Speaker 6: you if you one of those guys that I'm saying,
Speaker 6: you say that when you walk and you ain't got
Speaker 6: to get your ship and be like, the fuck is that?
Speaker 6: You're gonna know? You? You know, it's just gonna It's
Speaker 6: like when you saw Coffee did that freestyle and everybody
Speaker 6: looked up when she was on BBC one Extra and
Speaker 6: she did that freestyle beside chronics and you're like, the
Speaker 6: fuck is that? You know what I mean, You're curiosity
Speaker 6: just jump and she ad was one freestyle, shen't do
Speaker 6: nothing crazy issue, but it was just so special you
Speaker 6: wanted to know who the hell that was. And so
Speaker 6: no matter, you will get through the clutter if you're
Speaker 6: that good and you have to be that, you just
Speaker 6: got to be that. I always tell artists, I said,
Speaker 6: you want to cut you the clutter? You gotta perfect
Speaker 6: your craft?
Speaker 2: What does that entail in terms of reggae culture? Like
Speaker 2: I know in hip hop culture, you know, the very
Speaker 2: beginning to Reak spent a lot of time in dictionary
Speaker 2: learning words he never knew before, you know, constantly like
Speaker 2: what's what's impressive for a dancehall artist too?
Speaker 3: Is it melodic delivery? Is it words?
Speaker 2: Is it the rhythm that he happens to be rhyming over?
Speaker 6: Like what it's really what you bring to that you
Speaker 6: just said to he studied the dictionary. That was what
Speaker 6: he brought to the table that was different from everybody else.
Speaker 6: It's really what you're bringing to the table right to
Speaker 6: set you apart. Because everybody could sit there and say
Speaker 6: they're gonna spit lyrics, But what is that that special
Speaker 6: lot style that you're going to bring that's gonna set
Speaker 6: you apart? For me, yeah, I was lyrical, but I
Speaker 6: also had this voice. Yeah blaha, long time buster, grow
Speaker 6: them onto jail. Reck that ship. Just set me the
Speaker 6: funk apart. Wait, that was where that was recognizable something Wait, stop.
Speaker 3: Wait, how did you developed that voice?
Speaker 6: I was in the military. I used to run cadences.
Speaker 7: This is the story I've been waiting for.
Speaker 6: Okay. Yeah, I used to run and see and say
Speaker 6: I don't know, but I have been told see where's panished?
Speaker 6: I used to sing because the drill instructures we talked
Speaker 6: to you like that boy drop and give a toy boar.
Speaker 6: You know, they put that voice, and so I used
Speaker 6: to mock them as as as a joke because it
Speaker 6: made came from I.
Speaker 3: Swear man, wait till I tell Higgins this, Steve.
Speaker 6: And then and then the crazy part is I ended
Speaker 6: up singing. I ended up doing Old Carolina in that voice. Yeah,
Speaker 6: because if you listen, all right, if you ever listened
Speaker 6: to that song called Bigger, Big Up, Big Up Big, Notice,
Speaker 6: notice that's a that's a different tone of voice than
Speaker 6: the Old Carolina, even if I.
Speaker 12: Tell you about that, yeah, big up, right, that ricket
Speaker 12: is a different tone of voice, you know.
Speaker 6: And then I went ahead and did that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't already fell on the floor before y'all
Speaker 4: even got on the line. I'm just trying to I'm
Speaker 4: blocking me. I my mind talking about it. It comes
Speaker 4: from a Southern He took a Southern a mirror.
Speaker 2: Wow, you took a Southern dialect, like like a drill sergeant.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 3: The more you know, and.
Speaker 6: Just kind of worked that worked with that.
Speaker 3: So when did you move to the United States?
Speaker 6: I would I came to you. I was in nineteen
Speaker 6: eighty five.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, okay, Oh, so.
Speaker 3: You came to these states specifically to go to the army. No.
Speaker 6: I came to the States. My mom was a journalist
Speaker 6: in Jamaica, the main newspaper here called the Gleaner, the
Speaker 6: Daily Gleaner, and my mother she migrated to the States
Speaker 6: and I'm being I'm an only child. So I ended
Speaker 6: up coming to America where her years afterwards, when I
Speaker 6: was living with my grandmother in Jamaica, and in nineteen
Speaker 6: eighty five I came up and it was a culture shock.
Speaker 6: I lived that in New York Avenue between Tilden and Beverly,
Speaker 6: in a building called the Irma. I can't remember it.
Speaker 6: I went to Rasmus Fall and I just kind of
Speaker 6: it was a shot well culture shop because I'm seeing snow.
Speaker 6: And I think what shocked me the most was that
Speaker 6: people did their laundries and laundromats because I could. I
Speaker 6: couldn't because we did it in our backyard and the
Speaker 6: holiday last Yeah. And I couldn't believe that people would
Speaker 6: let people touch their draws like they would foe draws
Speaker 6: and that I was. I was embarrassed when I went
Speaker 6: to the launder back with my mother because people seeing
Speaker 6: my draws. I was like, I couldn't believe that. I
Speaker 6: was just I was just raised different. He was like,
Speaker 6: You're gonna just You're gonna just fold your draws in
Speaker 6: front of everybody like that, what the buck? Yeah? You
Speaker 6: so to me, it was like that. So it was
Speaker 6: a it was a big culture shop, but it was
Speaker 6: also a melting pot because I didn't know there were Haitians,
Speaker 6: and I didn't know there were Trinidadians. I didn't know
Speaker 6: that there were Panamanians. I didn't know. I just knew Jamaica.
Speaker 6: And then I started to figure out different people's cultures
Speaker 6: and realize that they all were similar. That you know
Speaker 6: a lot of them really embodied dance all and reggae,
Speaker 6: and I was a kid that really soaked all of
Speaker 6: that up.
Speaker 2: How did witnessing American hip hop affect you when you
Speaker 2: got here?
Speaker 6: I went to Erasmus that had a lot of like
Speaker 6: Special Lead was there. I had a lot of rappers
Speaker 6: that came out of that school. So hip hop was apart.
Speaker 6: It was a beat box era. So it's you know,
Speaker 6: Slick Rick was Jamaican, you know, Dougie Fresh was. It
Speaker 6: was that whole vibe. So the all that ship, it
Speaker 6: was things that I was like, you know, so that
Speaker 6: even when you guys had Rozelle, you know that I
Speaker 6: was a big fan of Osh because you know, he
Speaker 6: did that ship, you know what I mean? I think
Speaker 6: I think when when we Houston died, we were at
Speaker 6: the same day house and and that's when we did
Speaker 6: a little freestyle thing with Rozelle at that time, so
Speaker 6: I was into hip hop from that point of course.
Speaker 6: Then I ended up knowing cool Her down the line
Speaker 6: and realized how the whole thing come.
Speaker 3: But so wait, what high school? What high school?
Speaker 6: Was this? Erasmas Hall. It's the second and high oldest
Speaker 6: high school in the United States. It's actually the high
Speaker 6: school that Clive Davis started Arista out of, and where
Speaker 6: Barbarus treisand graduated from a lot of huge, huge superstars
Speaker 6: name there. It's in the heart of Flatbush. It's right
Speaker 6: on Flatbush Avenue in Church, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: And that's where that's in Brooklyn, That's where I was,
Speaker 6: I was at and that whole vibe, you know, it
Speaker 6: is just where this this whole energy came from.
Speaker 3: You came here in eighty five, so I guess you
Speaker 3: were sixteen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, So what were your by that point?
Speaker 3: What were your life goals in terms.
Speaker 6: Of I wanted to be popular because because my my
Speaker 6: mother dressed me funny. You know what's school. Yeah, that's
Speaker 6: an old school Jamaican woman that you know. She she
Speaker 6: would give me her jacket, you know, and she got
Speaker 6: pink innad and light blue and shed and you know
Speaker 6: the funk. I know, you know, she pours. I'm going
Speaker 6: to school. You know, I wonder why nobody is, you know,
Speaker 6: is being friends with me, you know, except the la
Speaker 6: Haitian kids that he dress worse than me. So so,
Speaker 6: but after a while, I had Once I started doing
Speaker 6: was spitting lyrics. I became popular, and I realized that
Speaker 6: if I I started talking, i'd see a little cutie.
Speaker 6: I talk about her hair, you know, you know, or
Speaker 6: bamboo hair, ear rings, and you know, I had to
Speaker 6: talk about her boots and her sheepskin jacket, and you know,
Speaker 6: I talk about all of that and spitting a rhyme.
Speaker 6: I get a number, and I realized, oh ship, I
Speaker 6: get chicks like this, okay, And I did music. I
Speaker 6: wish I could say something deeper than that, but I
Speaker 6: really pussy like that. I got into music because I
Speaker 6: wanted to get laid. You know, I.
Speaker 5: Realized, I think that's everyone.
Speaker 2: Alone, bro, you know, I realized that I split lyrics.
Speaker 6: I was a ghetto superstar. I got these local hits
Speaker 6: into clubs for free. I drink for free, and I
Speaker 6: walked out with the hottest chick and I was in heaven.
Speaker 6: I was like, this is what I want to do.
Speaker 6: So for me, you know, I love what yellow Man
Speaker 6: did and I was fascinated by that. But when I
Speaker 6: was in Brooklyn, there was no real outlet for dancer.
Speaker 6: So my mother was like, you need to go do
Speaker 6: something with yourself. And so I started to sell drugs,
Speaker 6: you know. I started to sell weed. You know. I
Speaker 6: was on clarks On nostri and you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: And then had a spot down at Gates Avenue. So
Speaker 6: you got into weed and coked and started, you know, hustling.
Speaker 6: That's what. That's what because every Jamaica and I and
Speaker 6: all my uncles they're all hustlers.
Speaker 4: So us, especially in New York, they had the good
Speaker 4: weed all the Jamaica.
Speaker 6: Yeah, until after a while, motherfuckers start getting locked start
Speaker 6: getting locked up, and you'd be like, Okay, I got
Speaker 6: to get out of this shit, you know. And so
Speaker 6: and so I went into the military. That's how I
Speaker 6: ended up in the military. I walked down the Flatbush
Speaker 6: Avenue at the junction and walked in and looked at
Speaker 6: all the uniforms and looked at the Marines, and said, yeah,
Speaker 6: I could get some chicks that I can get laid
Speaker 6: to that. I want to know, that's the hardest, the hardest.
Speaker 6: I didn't know. I just the uniform looked the best though,
Speaker 6: because really, because really, if you think about it, who
Speaker 6: wants to be in the In the Navy, there were
Speaker 6: were a bell bottom bro a bell, but you know
Speaker 6: there's got that little thing that looked like a blouse.
Speaker 6: You make it right now. So for me, the Marines
Speaker 6: just look like that, you know that that dressed blue
Speaker 6: ship and that yo bro. I was like, yo, that ship,
Speaker 6: I want to do that. And then this guy called Perez, uh,
Speaker 6: sergeant Perez, I remember his name, that come in and
Speaker 6: it's like, yo, you know he was my recruiter and
Speaker 6: I want to get out of here by next week.
Speaker 6: It's like, I can't get you off this. I get
Speaker 6: you two weeks from now. I was like, if I
Speaker 6: ain't going out next week, I ain't going and he,
Speaker 6: you know, kind of worked some things. I ended up
Speaker 6: going in two weeks after that is.
Speaker 4: Wait where did you go? And then when did you
Speaker 4: realized that you was in the Marines? And that was different.
Speaker 6: I didn't know I was in the Marines because I
Speaker 6: passed all the tests right, and I went to North
Speaker 6: Carolina on the busy U a candler Jones. Yeah, June
Speaker 6: stepped out on them yellow footprints and they just start screaming,
Speaker 6: screaming in my face. Yeah nor North Carolina. Yeah, so
Speaker 6: I accept them one of them yellow footprints and they
Speaker 6: just start screaming at me and spitting, chewing tobacco, and
Speaker 6: it was you know, so I chucked him because I'm
Speaker 6: I'm from Brooksly and I was like years and I
Speaker 6: see like six of them come down on me. I
Speaker 6: was like, okay, that's a bad idea.
Speaker 2: As a teenager, were you super rebellious?
Speaker 3: Like what is it to be in the American Army?
Speaker 2: Like in terms of like do you realize like, okay,
Speaker 2: this is something that has a lot of discipline and
Speaker 2: we got to wake up five in the morning to.
Speaker 3: A bunch of or at least this is what I
Speaker 3: see on television.
Speaker 6: But being an only child a very strict mother, I
Speaker 6: was I was very good. Like I would come yeah,
Speaker 6: I would come home from school and I'd be the
Speaker 6: only person so I knew where the key was on
Speaker 6: the under the map. I'd go and I make myself
Speaker 6: a sandwich. I do my homework because my mom would
Speaker 6: whoop ass. It wasn't you know my my mom would
Speaker 6: send you for the ship to whoop your ass. You
Speaker 6: know you'd be like get yeah, yeah, that's when I'm saying, yeah,
Speaker 6: go get that ship, you know what I mean. So,
Speaker 6: and it and the beatings was not it was you
Speaker 6: know them was some legendary or ass whooping, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean. So I was raised on that. So
Speaker 6: for me coming to America, I was always very disciplined
Speaker 6: and on it. I really didn't get into too many trouble.
Speaker 6: But I also like nice things and I and I
Speaker 6: wanted to be fly and I wanted to be you
Speaker 6: know what I mean. So if if I worked at
Speaker 6: Basket Robbins for one day, you know, I had a
Speaker 6: little apron on a little thing and the chicken there
Speaker 6: was a hot Puerto Rican chick came and and she
Speaker 6: wanted you know, started asking needs to scooping her ice cream.
Speaker 6: Just didn't look cool. I was like, this ain't medo.
Speaker 6: I was out shack.
Speaker 4: How far did you get? And you're really your hands
Speaker 4: registered as weapons?
Speaker 6: I don't know if my hands are registered as a weapon,
Speaker 6: but I was in the first Gulf War. I did
Speaker 6: Dore's a storm.
Speaker 7: Yet respect not bad, must respect.
Speaker 6: Thank you. I did four years. But I didn't come
Speaker 6: out as funny. I didn't come out as a model Marine.
Speaker 6: I came out one above a private. I got demoted twice.
Speaker 3: Wait demoted? Yeah, how did you get demoted for a wall?
Speaker 6: Because I would? I would drive from North Carolina to
Speaker 6: New York every weekend and you're not supposed to go
Speaker 6: outside of a fifty mile radius, and I would drive,
Speaker 6: would I? I did it Oh Carolina and big up
Speaker 6: in my uniform on a weekend and went back in
Speaker 6: on soup circle in on forty second Street. They had
Speaker 6: to think called soup circles where you'd jump in the
Speaker 6: van and they'd take you back. And so I did
Speaker 6: those records in my uniform, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: And I would drive, and if I drive, i'd drive
Speaker 6: down in my uniform so that most of the state
Speaker 6: troopers were ex military, so they stopped you. They'd be like, okay,
Speaker 6: slow down, Marine and let you go. So I would
Speaker 6: always drive in my uniform and I'd come to and
Speaker 6: link up with Sting International, who was a DJ out
Speaker 6: of Brooklyn, at the time, and you know, and was
Speaker 6: my early producer, and we would make records and I'd
Speaker 6: go right back in. So my early records like mom Pid,
Speaker 6: those songs when it happened, I was in the military.
Speaker 6: I didn't even know they were.
Speaker 5: Hot in Brooklyn.
Speaker 6: They were just hot.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: And were those records put out on a label or
Speaker 5: how did the business work?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a little. There was a little. There
Speaker 6: was a guy called Ben Sokolov. His brother was Will Sokolov.
Speaker 6: Will Sokalov had Oh yeah, Will Sokolov had the Sleeping
Speaker 6: Bag label. Yes, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, so
Speaker 6: so so I did a record called Gunshot, which was
Speaker 6: a big record that was blowing up on Sleeping Jazzy.
Speaker 6: Jeff would know about that record because he loved that. Yeah,
Speaker 6: so I right, and that was on Sleeping Bag. And
Speaker 6: Ben Sokolov was his brother that had this label called Signet,
Speaker 6: And then I would put all of those early records
Speaker 6: like Big Up and Mompey. All those records came out
Speaker 6: e'tn old Carolina came out initially on Signet. Yeah, but
Speaker 6: then he tried, he tried some. When I got I
Speaker 6: got signed for a million dollars in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 6: the biggest amount in the history of dance, all the
Speaker 6: reggae at that time. And then he was trying to
Speaker 6: you know, he was trying to do the E G
Speaker 6: E B GB on me. You know, yes, we had
Speaker 6: to cut that nigga loose Wait, we had to cut
Speaker 6: on boy and loose Jack.
Speaker 2: I always wanted to know this because I don't I
Speaker 2: don't know if I know vin musician that served in
Speaker 2: any of the Bush one era wars. But when they're
Speaker 2: going to send you guys to kuwait, what's going through
Speaker 2: your mind? Because you know, before that period, all we
Speaker 2: knew was Vietnam, And I think that America had this
Speaker 2: whole like never again, like we'll never get into another
Speaker 2: war ever again in this lifetime. And then like I remember,
Speaker 2: like when they may be announcement, especially in ninety one,
Speaker 2: that yeah, we're going to go to war, you know
Speaker 2: that that was like a I mean, now, a tragedy
Speaker 2: happens and then it's just like drop something, you know, right,
Speaker 2: But you know, back then it was like, Yo, what's
Speaker 2: gonna happen? So like in your mind, what were your thoughts?
Speaker 6: My thoughts at that point was to hate the dude
Speaker 6: that actually convinced me to go in the military, a
Speaker 6: guy called Mark. I forgot his last name. He was
Speaker 6: my boy. It was like, oh yeah, in the military.
Speaker 6: And then when I signed up, he had tried to
Speaker 6: send a letter to me saying, don't come into this ship.
Speaker 6: Don't come into this ship. Already I was already done.
Speaker 6: I was like that asshole, here I am. People do
Speaker 6: twenty years in the military and they get a paycheck
Speaker 6: for the rest of their life. I do four years
Speaker 6: and I'm in a fucking war, Like what are the odds?
Speaker 6: And That's what was going through my mind as far
Speaker 6: as my life is concerned. It really gave me an
Speaker 6: opportunity to be thankful or take a lot of things,
Speaker 6: not take a lot of things for granted. Like I
Speaker 6: used to take my mom's cooking for granted because I
Speaker 6: was thinking that I'm gonna go to my next door
Speaker 6: neighbors his mom cooked better, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 6: or whatever it is. And I would get up out
Speaker 6: of my bed and not not make it. When I
Speaker 6: was in the war, I was sleeping on a cop
Speaker 6: you know, our sleeping bag, or and then I was
Speaker 6: eating mrs Yeah, and then and I never me it
Speaker 6: was ready to eat. It's it's like it's yeah, pre
Speaker 6: read process process military food. And then I would I
Speaker 6: would have to dig a hole to take a dump.
Speaker 6: And it's so much ship that hits you. Then you
Speaker 6: realize that, oh ship, you had a lot of things
Speaker 6: good that you didn't realize. So when I got out
Speaker 6: the military, I was a changed person in so many
Speaker 6: ways because I realized what not to take for granted,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying, there's a lot of things
Speaker 6: that really So while I was in there, I didn't
Speaker 6: fear for my life. So because we were so gunn
Speaker 6: hold about and in the military, in the in the war,
Speaker 6: it was hurry up and wait. So literally we fought
Speaker 6: the war for about two days. The rest of it
Speaker 6: was you know, running around and moving around. The two
Speaker 6: days of two to three days of heavy fighting. Then
Speaker 6: they stopped. It was where it was in the shell.
Speaker 6: And those three days was crazy. We were we moved.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you came back home.
Speaker 9: Did you like have to go through any kind of
Speaker 9: therapy or counseling just to kind of Resinah?
Speaker 6: No, that was that was the easiest war because you
Speaker 6: got low It wasn't like Afghanistan or this place. You know,
Speaker 6: the Gulf War was a cake walcome player to the
Speaker 6: rest of those bro you know what I mean. It
Speaker 6: was low casualty, and I get it. You know, we
Speaker 6: lost people, So one son or daughter from my mama
Speaker 6: or pop is not low casualty. But in the pat
Speaker 6: of things, yeah, it's considered low low casualty. So I
Speaker 6: got out, you know, unfazed by it, but in a
Speaker 6: way very thankful, very appreciative, and very aware of how
Speaker 6: fortunate I am, you know, And I never looked back.
Speaker 2: Once you once you signed the dotted line and the
Speaker 2: government owns you, Yeah, how fast can you get out
Speaker 2: of it?
Speaker 3: Like I'm certain that And basically four years you got
Speaker 3: to do your four years.
Speaker 7: Okay, it's high school college.
Speaker 3: Unless you get kicked out.
Speaker 6: Unless you get kicked out. Yeah, and if you get
Speaker 6: kicked out, then you know you you can't own and
Speaker 6: you can't hold any government jobs, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: There's so many things that you can't do once you
Speaker 6: get kicked out issues.
Speaker 3: Government as in like garbage man two, like even.
Speaker 6: Anything police, anything, any you can't do any of these
Speaker 6: those things. There's certain things you just can't do when
Speaker 6: you're out. If you look at Walt Disney, when you
Speaker 6: always see Walt Disney sitting down, if you notice there's
Speaker 6: always those pictures behind him, there was one that was
Speaker 6: upside down. That was his dishonored with discharge.
Speaker 7: Oh wow, all.
Speaker 2: Right, hey, hey, there's a major history of like Jimmy Hendrick,
Speaker 2: Rick James, Like, yeah, people that I.
Speaker 6: Was not a model marine. I came one of PFC.
Speaker 6: But if you go to Paris, Holland, now my picture
Speaker 6: is like shaggy, they sell me. Yeah, they used me
Speaker 6: a cruit these days.
Speaker 9: How did you transition, because you know, being in the military,
Speaker 9: that's like very you know, rigid, it's you structure, you have,
Speaker 9: you know, time every day. How was the transition going
Speaker 9: into the music business where nothing is structured?
Speaker 5: How did you make that transition?
Speaker 6: I think it's what set me apart from everybody else,
Speaker 6: certainly in downs, you know, apart from me having a
Speaker 6: sound on a different style of music. I will I saw, Yeah,
Speaker 6: I was professional, I was on time, I worked really
Speaker 6: hard and you know, and it really set me apart
Speaker 6: from everybody else. That's that's what really did. So that
Speaker 6: transition wasn't hard because I was I was in the
Speaker 6: military doing that.
Speaker 2: Let it be known that Shaggy might be the first
Speaker 2: QLs guest that showed up ten minutes early before the
Speaker 2: interview started. I was in a car on the way
Speaker 2: home from the tonight show and they're like, he's here already.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yo, man, I didn't even get to my apartment.
Speaker 7: Correct the Shaggy, go ahead, correct.
Speaker 6: Them fifteen minutes early, not ten, just making me do pushups.
Speaker 2: Well, Shaggy, I always wanted to know this, Okay. So
Speaker 2: when I started to seriously DJ, especially, you know, there
Speaker 2: was the period where a lot of the I guess
Speaker 2: the WP record compilation stuff started coming out, and basically,
Speaker 2: you know, you have a gazillion Okay, First of all,
Speaker 2: what would I call?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: So if someone looks at someone in hip hop and
Speaker 2: the person that's doing the rhyme or whatever, we'll say, okay,
Speaker 2: that's the MC the rap Yeah. I know that technically
Speaker 2: you guys are DJs, but like, what would you commonly
Speaker 2: call the person with the microphone in dance all culture?
Speaker 3: Are you calling him an MC or a rapper?
Speaker 6: DJ? DJ music? Say what? So? DJ? They used to
Speaker 6: call it back in the day toasting, like like the
Speaker 6: British will call it toasting. But in dance culture in Jamaica,
Speaker 6: say you use a DJ to this day, my nickname
Speaker 6: is DJ.
Speaker 7: Like in the back with the records, who is he
Speaker 7: select them?
Speaker 6: I knew that I was just.
Speaker 7: Testing everybody else.
Speaker 6: I knew that right.
Speaker 7: Select that I got.
Speaker 2: You can you tell me the process, especially you know,
Speaker 2: starting in at least eighty seven eighty eight, when like
Speaker 2: dance all is really really finding it's it's legs.
Speaker 3: How do rhythms get distributed?
Speaker 6: Like, how are you.
Speaker 2: Guys aware that yo? Okay, let's let's take the most
Speaker 2: infamous one, which is the SLI and Robbie Murdercy wrote rhythm.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, you know, we live in a time where you
Speaker 2: can pick up your iPhone and something goes viral. But
Speaker 2: how are people aware that there's a new rhythm ready
Speaker 2: to be like right for business in which you know,
Speaker 2: I can rhyme over this or or not rhyme toast
Speaker 2: over this.
Speaker 6: Well you know that particular rhythm. A lot of people
Speaker 6: don't know that Robbie Shakespeare wasn't really on that it
Speaker 6: was really it was really sly. Now team their team.
Speaker 13: Has Slier Robbie, but right, Robbie really didn't play based
Speaker 13: on that. It was really, it was really and Robbie
Speaker 13: has been a very very close friend of mine for years,
Speaker 13: you know.
Speaker 6: But that rhythm itself, you know, it was made with
Speaker 6: with akadem Is, some Plyers and they did two songs
Speaker 6: on it. I think Pliers did Bam Bam, which was
Speaker 6: a cover of the old twots right, and then and
Speaker 6: then they did Murder she wrote, And those were the
Speaker 6: two records. First. It didn't become a rhythm until after
Speaker 6: that where people sly started to make it as a
Speaker 6: ridden for other people to do and started doing different Okay.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna just say it, you guys, because I'm gonna
Speaker 4: say it for the folks that don't know.
Speaker 7: Just tell them what the rhythm is. Tell them what
Speaker 7: the rhythm is.
Speaker 2: The background so like don't you notice like sometimes you'll
Speaker 2: hear the same song, you'll hear the same musical bath
Speaker 2: drop everybody like.
Speaker 5: Way back the the what was the right right? And
Speaker 5: that was that's the rhythm.
Speaker 6: So the Wally rhythm is done by Lanky Marsden, who
Speaker 6: was also a protege of Slim Robbie to be honest
Speaker 6: with you and and Leanky Marsden is one of the
Speaker 6: arrangers on this new album with Me and Sting. Yeah,
Speaker 6: so he created that and did Sean Paul Get Busy
Speaker 6: and all of those records and then he wanted to
Speaker 6: know Letting Go and all that. Yeah, that record that
Speaker 6: was a very popular ridden too.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm just asking from the musical standpoint. So say,
Speaker 2: if I make a beat, right, I produce something, Yeah, do.
Speaker 3: I want everyone to rhyme over it?
Speaker 2: And am I getting paid like the person that does
Speaker 2: the rhythm to or whatever d like when he does
Speaker 2: that rhythm and then like thirty people are rhyming and
Speaker 2: releasing records on that rhythm.
Speaker 3: Am I getting paid thirty times?
Speaker 6: Or am I just yes you are? Okay, oh yes
Speaker 6: you are? Because because each song, each song is a
Speaker 6: new composition. So little Me d uh oh is a
Speaker 6: different composition, Sean Paul uh, get Busy is a different composition.
Speaker 6: So wonder yeah you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So there's no there's no like territorial pissing, Like I
Speaker 2: don't know, like if I made something dope like grinding
Speaker 2: by the clips, if the clips rhyme are over grind
Speaker 2: and I would figure that Pharrell wouldn't want anyone else
Speaker 2: to have that musical backdrop except for the artisty intensive.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but if you, but but if you, if you're
Speaker 6: in the business of money, you're going to have dope, right,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 5: Said jacking your ship. But if you're saying it.
Speaker 6: Like, all right, take a bridge, you got you got,
Speaker 6: Sting did every berth you take and then Puffy did
Speaker 6: it over with I'll be miss you, it's the same
Speaker 6: be Sting.
Speaker 4: Got paid twice and now you'll just like Mary's samples
Speaker 4: are marrying into the rhythm.
Speaker 6: You know, It's just it's the same ship, you know,
Speaker 6: So if you I want that to happen. Nowadays, it's
Speaker 6: not as popular to have rhythms again as much. You know,
Speaker 6: it's not it doesn't dominate like that. It's mainly an
Speaker 6: Internet really changed that. So you'll see people do you know,
Speaker 6: because YouTube is where most Jamaicans consume. They're they're they're streaming,
Speaker 6: so they'll be buying into these songs. And it's too easy,
Speaker 6: you know, to just get into different different songs.
Speaker 3: Now, well, that's my next question.
Speaker 2: I was about to say, like I haven't seen a
Speaker 2: new rhythm since like two.
Speaker 3: Thousand and seven. Almost it's almost like it it went out.
Speaker 3: So for you, where is dancehall culture?
Speaker 2: I have a feeling that, like, is there something new
Speaker 2: that the younger generation is embracing.
Speaker 6: Chronics Chronics is a part of the new generation. I
Speaker 6: would think, you know.
Speaker 3: These are old soul.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but but but but there that's a guy where
Speaker 6: the music that he made was appealing to the young,
Speaker 6: young guys, but also to older people. You know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying, People fuck with Chronics who were old people
Speaker 6: were young, you know what I'm saying. But as far
Speaker 6: as that, as far as dance All, now, you know,
Speaker 6: if you look at what dance all is right now,
Speaker 6: it's a different kind of a sound. But what dance
Speaker 6: all is looking for is that superhero star that I'm
Speaker 6: telling you about to really make it cool and shift it.
Speaker 6: You know, the sound might very well be there. It's
Speaker 6: a combination of two things, a sound, right and the
Speaker 6: artists and the star. Because you could sing something backwards
Speaker 6: in the Hebrew. If you cool enough doing it, you're
Speaker 6: gonna grab onto it. Do you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Is there a lack of a certain type of charisma? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean the same way that there will never be
Speaker 2: another Michael Jackson, There'll never be another prince.
Speaker 6: And I'm gonna break it down to you. I'm gonna
Speaker 6: tell you why I'm break it down to you. There
Speaker 6: is a lack of that because you might have somebody
Speaker 6: who's really talented, but they don't have charisma. Or you
Speaker 6: might have somebody that got the charisma but he can't
Speaker 6: spit real well. Or you might have somebody that got
Speaker 6: the rithman he could spit well, but then the person's lazy, ship,
Speaker 6: don't want to do no interviews, don't want to go
Speaker 6: nothing now and so, or you might have somebody got
Speaker 6: all of that, but they got to manage it. That's
Speaker 6: just a fucking idiot, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 6: when you when you look at it, if you to
Speaker 6: get a superstar, that super you gotta have all of
Speaker 6: that lined up. Take for instance, you look at Afrobeat.
Speaker 6: Everybody say Afrobeat has been coming forever, blah blah blah
Speaker 6: blah blah blah blah. Okay, but you look at Berna
Speaker 6: boy right now is the biggest in the world. Now.
Speaker 6: If you go to like Nigeria and talk to problem
Speaker 6: the average person to be like bernaboy, is that guy?
Speaker 6: You know what I mean? You go because same ship
Speaker 6: that go on a different day with a different artist,
Speaker 6: you know, the same shit with me. Oh shah, yeah,
Speaker 6: ain't that you know? Whatever it is?
Speaker 3: So whoever the popular one is.
Speaker 6: But what sets burn a boy apart? That's that's the
Speaker 6: guy that did the work, Because how are you gonna
Speaker 6: tell the guys in Africa? Africa is a continent. These
Speaker 6: guys are driving Lamborghinis and Ferrari. You're gonna tell him
Speaker 6: to come over here and do quest Love show for free?
Speaker 6: I fuck got it. It takes. It takes. It takes
Speaker 6: a different mindset of a guy to be like, you
Speaker 6: know what, I'm seeing a bigger picture here. I'm gonna
Speaker 6: go do Quest's ship for free, and I'm gonna and
Speaker 6: I'm gonna come from fifteen minutes early and make sure
Speaker 6: that that motherfucker see me when he comes. I mean,
Speaker 6: and it ain't money for that guy, it's it is
Speaker 6: really a bigger picture of where he wants to go.
Speaker 6: That's that's what Bernard boy hats. That's the guy that
Speaker 6: decided that he's gonna do it. Now, what's gonna happen
Speaker 6: now is once he gets that, you're gonna see a
Speaker 6: lot of motherfuckers who was driving him car be like, yo,
Speaker 6: I want to be as big as that might. Yo,
Speaker 6: he ain't shit fuck that. You know, they're gonna start
Speaker 6: to work now because he's now setting that trend of
Speaker 6: what to do. You know this, right after Shaggy, there
Speaker 6: was a Shan Paul I mean, and that then because Trent,
Speaker 6: you know this right after remember what motherfuckers used to
Speaker 6: do until Jay started putting on suits, you know, and
Speaker 6: and and put it fitted on, and then motherfuckers became
Speaker 6: instead of rappers, they became wounds, you know, and remember that.
Speaker 6: And Jade came with a model. You know, he went Beyonce.
Speaker 6: I saw fifty do an interview the other day and say,
Speaker 6: we know why j madde because he signed that contract?
Speaker 6: What contract Beyonce? Because because Beyonce was this leverage. Because
Speaker 6: you're gonna have a different conversation now when you got
Speaker 6: Beyonce in the room, you know what I'm saying. That's
Speaker 6: the difference. And if you if you look at the model,
Speaker 6: it became okay. So what came after that? Kanye and
Speaker 6: Kim same model, Swiss and Alicia same model right right now,
Speaker 6: you got Cardi b and and same same model, you know.
Speaker 6: I mean it's it's been patterned because it was blueprinted
Speaker 6: by Jay and you saw that it worked and you
Speaker 6: followed it. You know what I'm saying, That's all we're
Speaker 6: trying to do in dance all is create that mold.
Speaker 6: That'd be like, oh ship, that's blueprinted. This motherfuck made that.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna fuck with that, and you might do a
Speaker 6: spin off of it. And they got me exactly the
Speaker 6: same way. But you know, you got something as a
Speaker 6: guide to bring you there.
Speaker 4: But making that next shaggy it's more of a challenge,
Speaker 4: I think than people even know, because I was I
Speaker 4: was just thinking about this as we were talking about
Speaker 4: these other records that came out during the time when
Speaker 4: you did, like even with the murder she Wroats or flex.
Speaker 4: The other one thing that you have and that nobody
Speaker 4: ever did, and we don't want to admit this as Americans,
Speaker 4: is that we knew what the fuck you was saying,
Speaker 4: because for like the rest of those records, we were But.
Speaker 6: That was calculated. I figured it out, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean. I took I knew motherfuckers like reggae because
Speaker 6: they liked the cadences and the floor. I took dance
Speaker 6: all cadences. But I just spoke to Queen's English. So
Speaker 6: I put a little patrol word there and there. But
Speaker 6: then I made it clear enough a lot of things.
Speaker 6: One big party and you're still young. Well, who's gonna
Speaker 6: have their back when it's all dumb? It's all go
Speaker 6: the way you have that accent that is there. But
Speaker 6: that was deliberate. It was an accident.
Speaker 4: But to the point where people questioned, But to the
Speaker 4: point where people questioned your validity as like, let.
Speaker 7: Me tell you that from Jamaica.
Speaker 6: Ya, dude, that ship killed It made me and killed
Speaker 6: me at the same time. It made me because I
Speaker 6: got on every single radio and my records would be
Speaker 6: it killed me. Couldn't be like that nigga ain't real Jamaican.
Speaker 6: You don't hear that motherfucker. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: That motherfucker in Jamaican, And I am more Jamaican than
Speaker 6: all that motherfuckers because I'm not. I'm from the gutters
Speaker 6: of Jamaica. I'm from the Jamaica, And I mean I
Speaker 6: did everything Jamaican out of there. But at the end
Speaker 6: of the day, as history absorbs you after a while.
Speaker 7: That story wasn't shaggy though.
Speaker 4: That part of the story was never told about you
Speaker 4: because of the fact that you skipped and went to
Speaker 4: that pop thing. So everybody who was pushing toward that
Speaker 4: direction had no idea that we wanted to hear that
Speaker 4: story necessary and.
Speaker 6: I didn't want I didn't want to go pop. I
Speaker 6: just go where there understood, understand because if you because
Speaker 6: if you think about there's another guy that was in
Speaker 6: my company, his name was Bob Marley. Yes, I noticed
Speaker 6: that Bob Marley was never played on black radio.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, he was played.
Speaker 6: He was played on rock radio. Yes. It's so ironic
Speaker 6: now that that Marley has now become a symbol of
Speaker 6: black people and and the black struggle, but was not embraced.
Speaker 4: You're right, it's funny because it was truly black radio's fault,
Speaker 4: not black people, which my mother always makes it clear, like,
Speaker 4: don't get it twisted. I saw the documentary too. We
Speaker 4: fucked with him.
Speaker 6: Radio did not exactly exactly, So it's so ironic. And
Speaker 6: then what was so what was so crazy is that
Speaker 6: the Marley music that you hear now that is now
Speaker 6: the blueprint of reggae music was actually a hybrid because
Speaker 6: of because of rock. Because let me show you Chris Blackwell.
Speaker 6: To get to get reggae to be played on rock record,
Speaker 6: he hired a session musicians to do overdubs and a
Speaker 6: lot of the original Whalers records created a high and
Speaker 6: created a hybrid. And that's how and those records are
Speaker 6: now the blueprint of what reggae music is now. If
Speaker 6: you look at it, even with Sting and the Police,
Speaker 6: Sting used to idols. Sting told me this that he
Speaker 6: tried to to emolate. He tried to immolate a family man,
Speaker 6: and and and the Whales and all of these reggae bands,
Speaker 6: and what he created, he couldn't do it. So what
Speaker 6: he ended up doing was a hybrid version of it,
Speaker 6: which became the sound.
Speaker 3: Of the Yeah right.
Speaker 6: It became white rege and and and if you look
Speaker 6: at if you look at the Police, they were really
Speaker 6: the first white reggae band that sold millions, you know.
Speaker 6: And then if you look at it now at all
Speaker 6: the rest of the band, you look at, you be
Speaker 6: forty All of these bands that have sold over ten
Speaker 6: million are massive. They're all white. You be forty, no
Speaker 6: doubt a bass you know, no way right. Even now,
Speaker 6: the two biggest reggae bands is Soldia and Revolution, white
Speaker 6: reggae bands.
Speaker 7: I was with Spice in that fight. She should should
Speaker 7: have won.
Speaker 6: Josh got out one matter of fact. Matter of fact,
Speaker 6: Bob Marley was arguably the biggest reggae artists of all times.
Speaker 6: Only Number one was I Shot the Sheriff. That was
Speaker 6: done by the white guy, Eric Eric Clapton.
Speaker 4: Wow, you got to teach this master class.
Speaker 7: Shaggy damn Shaggy.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When when you're when you're having this initial success with
Speaker 2: with Caroline and all these hits, you know you're you're
Speaker 2: now stepping into spaces and territories that are you know,
Speaker 2: only for you know, the elite artists. And so what's
Speaker 2: that experience like like now getting to play these stadiums
Speaker 2: and doing these shows that otherwise you know you're not
Speaker 2: doing these, like local run of the mill nightclubs.
Speaker 7: And sound systems.
Speaker 6: I tell you what, I never felt accepted. I believe
Speaker 6: that I was never felt accepted in any of it.
Speaker 6: I always felt out of place, even though I was
Speaker 6: in the room with some of these big names and
Speaker 6: I sold those numbers. I never felt like I was
Speaker 6: accepted as part of it. It was like, Okay, he's
Speaker 6: just a thing.
Speaker 3: Oh you got lucky and you're here.
Speaker 2: So even when you like, performed from Michael Jackson at MSG,
Speaker 2: because I think he actually said I love this song
Speaker 2: I saw it was about.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he said it was his favorite record. But Michael
Speaker 6: gave me a speech. Like I spoke to Michael and
Speaker 6: he gave me a speech. And when you're talking to
Speaker 6: Michael Jackson and he knows everything about your album more
Speaker 6: than you, Wow, you realized that that person is stud
Speaker 6: like he was. He was asking me a BYuT album tracks,
Speaker 6: not singles, album tracks.
Speaker 2: Quick backstory, Mike, So Michael Jackson before streaming culture, Michael
Speaker 2: had like four dudes every week, like four guys would
Speaker 2: have to study every chart around the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then make.
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson a compilation of every top twenty chart for
Speaker 2: every country in the world. So every Monday morning, Michael
Speaker 2: Jackson's getting a new compilation of whatever is like just
Speaker 2: got into the top twenty and he's studying it.
Speaker 6: And he Likelive Davis, Clive Davis did the same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, and then if he likes what he hears,
Speaker 2: then he studies that.
Speaker 3: Artist whole history.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was explains why he takes like six years
Speaker 3: between records, so he's busy.
Speaker 6: So Michael for me was a validation because for one,
Speaker 6: I didn't even know the guy named my name. Right,
Speaker 6: Imagine how shocked I was that I got the invite.
Speaker 6: I'm like, I'm dansall, are you serious? Or the genre?
Speaker 6: I'm like yeah, And and and that I was going
Speaker 6: to be on Prime Time singing that ship you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying, and then he reacted out. He reacted
Speaker 6: So that was that was a moment for me. So
Speaker 6: that was a part of the validation for me. But
Speaker 6: I think the biggest validation I got was Sting. That
Speaker 6: that was the biggest validation for me. That, like Sting
Speaker 6: restored every confidence that I was lacking.
Speaker 3: Talk about it. How did you guys meet?
Speaker 6: You know? Funny enough, I'm mixeding in two thousand and
Speaker 6: four and Antwerp and I jumped on stage and did
Speaker 6: rock sand and I never saw him again into years after.
Speaker 3: Was that the Police reunion?
Speaker 6: No, it wasn't produce unit. He was just you know,
Speaker 6: doing on his own No, he did rock yeah on
Speaker 6: his own. Yeah, he does that every d It's his song,
Speaker 6: he wrote, He wrote, all so it's good. Well that.
Speaker 2: But normally, normally when I see Sting, you know, I
Speaker 2: get jazzy Sting or whatever, like he never touches his.
Speaker 6: Nose, you know, he's that. That night he did and
Speaker 6: we ended up broking in Antwerp. I was on a
Speaker 6: thing called Night of the Problems with Me. James Brown,
Speaker 6: sending Law pointed, sister, all of us was there. It
Speaker 6: was a big orchestra thing. We were there for a month,
Speaker 6: you know, and wow, and that's when I met James
Speaker 6: Brown too, who took a liking to me and kicked
Speaker 6: my door in and gave me a full fucking sit
Speaker 6: down one evening.
Speaker 3: What was that like?
Speaker 6: He walked into my dressing room with a with a
Speaker 6: bodyguard guy behind him and the dude that always put
Speaker 6: the thing over his shoulders and and he walked in
Speaker 6: and said and said, he says, sit down, I want
Speaker 6: to talk to you. And I was like, oh ship,
Speaker 6: I'm not getting like a James Brown beat down or something.
Speaker 6: So I sat and then he was like, let me
Speaker 6: tell you something. I don't watch you every night.
Speaker 12: I seen them come. I see him go. I've been
Speaker 12: to your country, a part of Molly. Let me tell
Speaker 12: you something. You good, you the truth, you funny. You
Speaker 12: need to let me see both sides.
Speaker 6: And I'm looking at him, say, let me tell you something.
Speaker 6: Can take away your woman, your house, your car, your money.
Speaker 6: There's one thing that never.
Speaker 12: Take away from you your talent. And as long as
Speaker 12: you have your talent, you're a rich man. Keep doing
Speaker 12: you doing, God bless you. Get up and walked out.
Speaker 6: That was my James Brown you know moment. And I
Speaker 6: was like, because he would because he would come out
Speaker 6: on the stage like all of us. We have these
Speaker 6: orchestra that was playing that we would come out every
Speaker 6: now and then and play different different songs, and he
Speaker 6: would come out every time it was my segment. He
Speaker 6: pulled a chair up and he just sit down and
Speaker 6: watch wow and then yeah. And then I would be like, mister, mister,
Speaker 6: they would say, mister Brown. I'd be like, god father,
Speaker 6: you'd always and he comes in and you know you always.
Speaker 6: It was hollering at me like that, and it just
Speaker 6: really took a liking to me. For some reason. I
Speaker 6: heard it was a hard ass. But he was like,
Speaker 6: really just a really cool guy to me. For some reason,
Speaker 6: he just you know, he just liked me, you know.
Speaker 6: So we were there doing that and then Sting came
Speaker 6: in and for one night that and we gave up
Speaker 6: the night and that's the first time I met him.
Speaker 6: Years afterwards, Markin Kiirzenbaum, who was my a n r
Speaker 6: at at Geffen when you know, you remember that time
Speaker 6: when mc HA turned into Geffen. Remember, so Martin Martin
Speaker 6: was the head of international and he was the only
Speaker 6: person that really championed my my project at that time
Speaker 6: with Asexy Lady and these other records, and so I
Speaker 6: decided to say, hey, that guy championed me. I told Jimmy,
Speaker 6: I want him to be my an R. And so
Speaker 6: Martin and I became really good friends. Martin then did
Speaker 6: cher Tree label and signed Lady Gaga and LMFAO and
Speaker 6: all of these big, big, bigger bands. And when Martin
Speaker 6: left Interscop, he started managing Sting because he was also
Speaker 6: stings A and r FI years and he just thought
Speaker 6: he knew me and new Sting and just thought that
Speaker 6: we would get along. And I had a song called
Speaker 6: Don't Make Me Wait, and Martin says I love that song,
Speaker 6: could you send it to me? So I sent it
Speaker 6: to him and I'm in the student in LA. When
Speaker 6: I send it to him, I'm doing some ship and
Speaker 6: Sting walked in singing it and he was like, do maybe,
Speaker 6: come on, Shaguless, make this a hit. I was like, oh,
Speaker 6: it happened. Yeah, it was like really And we sat
Speaker 6: there and he looks at me and he says, now,
Speaker 6: I want you to produce me. I wanted to be authentic.
Speaker 6: This is your this is your genre. I want you
Speaker 6: to and I'm like, you want me to produce you?
Speaker 6: That's what? What's that?
Speaker 4: I hear?
Speaker 3: He's hard to take instruction.
Speaker 6: So no, he's very easy, he said, one of the
Speaker 6: easiest guys. You could do. The other thing, you could
Speaker 6: realize what Sting is that when he's creating. If he
Speaker 6: comes up with something and you like it and he
Speaker 6: likes it, just know he's doing thirty more of them
Speaker 6: and he might come back to the original. Wow, that's
Speaker 6: his process. It might be frustrating to you that if
Speaker 6: you hear that one that you like, he's not okay,
Speaker 6: I know you like that. Okay, we'll put that in
Speaker 6: the pocket. Now I got thirty more to do.
Speaker 3: Right, so you gotta have patience.
Speaker 4: Dumb question, guys, Shaggy, are you the first reggae artist
Speaker 4: the thing is work with.
Speaker 6: I don't, I don't, I don't know. I don't think
Speaker 6: this thing has worked with so many people, But I'm
Speaker 6: I'm the first one an album.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: He's never he's never done a full album with anyone
Speaker 6: like that. Man do a full album together and it
Speaker 6: was a camaraderie. We met each other and just and
Speaker 6: just was like we had more fun than music and
Speaker 6: we just started laughing and just it just happened.
Speaker 2: We performed with each other, like I think right before
Speaker 2: the pandemic, the summer before and when I got the record,
Speaker 2: I always wanted to know, why did you guys name
Speaker 2: it forty four eight seven six?
Speaker 6: Well? Who was just trying to be creative?
Speaker 3: What's the what's the significance behind the number?
Speaker 6: So? So four four is the eric is the is
Speaker 6: the phone code when you're in the uk U prison?
Speaker 6: Plus four four.
Speaker 3: Oh plus four four eight seventy six.
Speaker 6: And eight seventy six is Jamaica. So it's four four
Speaker 6: to eight six Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Before we close, I definitely want to get to this
Speaker 2: this new project. So come like I did not see
Speaker 2: this coming. Now, Yeah, I'm a Sinatra fan. Like, tell me,
Speaker 2: tell me the genesis of how you came up with
Speaker 2: this idea. I'm going to do Frank Sinatra covers.
Speaker 6: We were on tour on the four four eight seventy
Speaker 6: six two and we had a day off in like Norway,
Speaker 6: one of these places, and we're on the fields on
Speaker 6: a boat. Sting says, let's let's take a boat out
Speaker 6: and just hang out for the day. And then we
Speaker 6: were out there and it was me and Dominic Miller's guitarists,
Speaker 6: and we're all out there on the boat. We had
Speaker 6: drinks and everything, and then he jumped off into the
Speaker 6: water and started swimming, and I was like, I do
Speaker 6: that ship, That's just that's just cold. I'm Jamaican, right,
Speaker 6: ain't me?
Speaker 7: Bro?
Speaker 6: So I just he jump off and sing and started
Speaker 6: to swim in there him and dominate, and I said,
Speaker 6: I'm staying on the boat. So while they was out
Speaker 6: there swimming, I'm like, okay, let me put on some music.
Speaker 6: So I just put on some Sinatra because I like
Speaker 6: Sinatra and I was raised on Sinatra in Jamaica, Like
Speaker 6: I say, it's Sunday music. So I just started playing
Speaker 6: it from my phone and then Sting was coming back
Speaker 6: up on the boat and I was singing along to it,
Speaker 6: and he just looked at me and says, yo, that's
Speaker 6: your key. I'm like okay. I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 6: you have the same You have the same tone as
Speaker 6: as Sinatra. That's he's a base tendor, you're a base
Speaker 6: tenor that's And so he's going to meet with all
Speaker 6: this ship and I'm like all right, well, yeah, sure,
Speaker 6: whatever you know. And then we started talking and he said, well,
Speaker 6: we'll be cool if we did this in reggae and
Speaker 6: blah blah blah, all this shit. The ship stayed away
Speaker 6: to like this is before the pandemic alledge to just
Speaker 6: sit around with ain done ship. And then last year,
Speaker 6: at the top of the year, he looks at me,
Speaker 6: he says, what the year before, he says, you know,
Speaker 6: we should. He was doing this thing in Vegas, we
Speaker 6: call it the Residence Residency, and I went out there
Speaker 6: to do to the Residency and sat and kind of
Speaker 6: jumped on stage of the night and we were backstage
Speaker 6: and I started singing the Sinatra shit again and he's
Speaker 6: playing and ship and he says, Shay, we should do this.
Speaker 6: I'm like, all right again, I'm not thinking nothing, and
Speaker 6: he's like, what are you doing the top of the year,
Speaker 6: I said, I'm going to be Myami. He says, let's
Speaker 6: do it. And then top of the year he came
Speaker 6: to my house in Miami and he called me and said, oh,
Speaker 6: we're going to do it. So I ended up flying
Speaker 6: some musicians up and we did it in my at
Speaker 6: my house, in my student in my house in Miami
Speaker 6: and started doing it there. By the end of the week,
Speaker 6: I had like eight songs. I was like, oh, Ship,
Speaker 6: this has really happened and it really sounded it. And
Speaker 6: then we ended up going to Jamaica. Now we got
Speaker 6: like Dean Fraser, Lanky Mars, then we got all the
Speaker 6: original dudes, We got all the backgrounds done, and then
Speaker 6: we ended up going to l a At Capitol into
Speaker 6: Sinatras and we did like you know the yeah, yeah
Speaker 6: we did it original, Yeah.
Speaker 3: We weren't there.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it's trippy. It's yeah, it's trippy, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean. And so we ended up doing that
Speaker 6: and then it was Rob who'd done was good at
Speaker 6: that repertoire that Sting brought in, you know, and we
Speaker 6: had to because most reggae records are good on two chords,
Speaker 6: you know this, and it's the most reggae records are
Speaker 6: two chords, and Sinatra is you know, four or five
Speaker 6: six chord changes. We had to figure out the genius
Speaker 6: was how to figure it out to make it not
Speaker 6: be more jazz than reggae, because if it's too jazz,
Speaker 6: then it's just gonna be corny. And if it's too reggae,
Speaker 6: then it's got enough jazz. So you have to take
Speaker 6: the right amount of chords out to make it work.
Speaker 6: And if that was strip it down, and that was
Speaker 6: experimental because if it won't too much, then it would
Speaker 6: be you know, it would be two corn if it's
Speaker 6: too much and right, you know, And it became it
Speaker 6: became a really really hard process, and it took Sting
Speaker 6: really hearing what he was saying. All the vocals was
Speaker 6: produced by Sting, like he sat there with me and
Speaker 6: taught me every note the piano, just like nope, nope,
Speaker 6: not that, nope, not that, nope, not you know, and
Speaker 6: really cracked on me to make sure that I got yeah,
Speaker 6: cracked the whip to make sure that I did. I
Speaker 6: did average about two songs a day.
Speaker 3: What was the most challenging song in the songbook? To conquered?
Speaker 6: Lucky a Lady was hard, because yeah, Lucky a Lady
Speaker 6: was really really hard and Saturday night and I would think,
Speaker 6: I think that's life was also cha, Yeah it was.
Speaker 6: It was alright, and you know it, and it's it's
Speaker 6: really just he wanted it, like he says. He kept
Speaker 6: saying to me, don't do Sinatra. I don't want Sinatra.
Speaker 6: I want Shaggy. And it was important for him to
Speaker 6: get that you're you're doing Sinatra songs, you're in the
Speaker 6: same registers, and but don't do Sinatra. I want you
Speaker 6: to because I had a tendency of mimicking people, mimiced
Speaker 6: to that. I was like, no, I want Shaggy, you know,
Speaker 6: and he was.
Speaker 2: He was adamant about So at one point, you took
Speaker 2: your trademark voice away to try to clean like Sinatra.
Speaker 6: No, no, it wasn't even that I would still use
Speaker 6: that voice, but just the way Sinatra would sing it.
Speaker 6: Note for note, I was copying that and he didn't
Speaker 6: want that. It's like I want shaggy. You know it's
Speaker 6: gonna be it's gonna you gotta bring that reggae flavored.
Speaker 6: It's reggae. I want that shaggy, you know. And he
Speaker 6: was he was very adamant about it. I mean talking
Speaker 6: when I say every line, man, I mean, we would.
Speaker 6: He was really on it. He's and if you work
Speaker 6: with Sting, this guy is there. He's ever on time.
Speaker 6: He's you know, he's early always, you know, and he's
Speaker 6: always beat you there. So you know, and I lived
Speaker 6: at my studio and he'll be there before I get up,
Speaker 6: and I'm like, dude, come on, man, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean. And so he'll be there, y'all that challenge. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and he'd do it in the day, straight down and
Speaker 6: he'll buy six seven o'clock, will stop. And that's how
Speaker 6: we work every day. It was never a late night nothing.
Speaker 6: By seven o'clock. We would probably go, you know, I'm
Speaker 6: gonna meet him at the bar by eight or so.
Speaker 6: By nineties like okay, I'm going to bed, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean. That's always you well, have like a
Speaker 6: glass of wine or something like that.
Speaker 5: How did you get your name.
Speaker 3: Because you can't related.
Speaker 7: Your curl pattern is undefined.
Speaker 6: Let me tell you, let me tell you something I was.
Speaker 6: I was skinny and I had a lot of hair,
Speaker 6: and they call me shaggy dog, shaggy dog. And then
Speaker 6: I was in England even like yeah, and then I
Speaker 6: went to England and found out that Shagman something else. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I was like like that ship cool.
Speaker 7: You that was the whole world.
Speaker 6: Like I'm like, I'm like, oh, ship, that's that's what
Speaker 6: it means. Almost the love of love.
Speaker 7: Shot a mirror. If this the wise sag, he not.
Speaker 7: He's not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 7: We need the Rock roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 4: We need the Kennedy Center Honors.
Speaker 6: Treasure was a treasure.
Speaker 9: So BOMBASTI I mean, just tell us about how your
Speaker 9: life changes when you have a huge record.
Speaker 6: I signed I did on Carolina. It became number one
Speaker 6: in the British chart. It was massive, like and it
Speaker 6: was number one and almost so and Kim Berry signed me,
Speaker 6: who was the co founder of Virgin. Kim Berry had
Speaker 6: signed that record and I was in the bidding world
Speaker 6: with Chris Blackwell and Kim Berry. Now I wanted to
Speaker 6: go with Island Records because that's where all my reggae
Speaker 6: eros were right and and and Susan Newman who was
Speaker 6: Chris black was right hand and me got really really friendly.
Speaker 6: She really loved me. She picked me from the airport.
Speaker 6: She would rock with me all the time. So I
Speaker 6: really wanted to be on that label. I was friend
Speaker 6: with Apache Indian at that time. Him and I used
Speaker 6: to hang out in London and he was on that label.
Speaker 6: So I really wanted to be on that label. And
Speaker 6: I was driving to go sign a deal memo and
Speaker 6: my manager got a call from Ken Barry offering me
Speaker 6: a million pounds at that time in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 6: which is on Earth, and I think Chris Blackwell was
Speaker 6: offering me something like one hundred and fifty to two
Speaker 6: hundred thousand pounds bullshit money. And I went there. I
Speaker 6: was like, okay, can you match it? And Chris was like, well,
Speaker 6: you know, it's a little bit too rich for me,
Speaker 6: you know, I mean, I've never paid that much for
Speaker 6: reguy artists. I'm not about to know he paid four
Speaker 6: thousand dollars for the mark for the Morrow even finished up.
Speaker 6: So I'm just I'm just letting you know. So, So
Speaker 6: I went with Ken Burry because he gave me a
Speaker 6: bit of offer, and then when it happened, Old Carolina happened.
Speaker 6: You know, I did Boombastic, And when I did Boombastic,
Speaker 6: it came out and debuted at number one. The first
Speaker 6: day was out and it was the first time in
Speaker 6: reggae or dance all history that any reggae dance or
Speaker 6: record would debut on the British chart at number one.
Speaker 6: And ken Berry called me and he says, Shaggy, congratulations,
Speaker 6: you're number one. I'm like, what's number one? The song?
Speaker 6: I said, we just put it out. He says, yes
Speaker 6: to debuted at number one. He says, wow, he says,
Speaker 6: and then he says, I wonder what Chris would be
Speaker 6: thinking now. And I said, and I said, I said, well,
Speaker 6: you know, Chris, you know he said, he you know,
Speaker 6: he couldn't. It's reggae. It was going to make that
Speaker 6: much funny, he says, funny should say that I made
Speaker 6: my million back on Old Carolina. It was top five
Speaker 6: in every country. This is just this is just the
Speaker 6: book debuted at number one and it was the first
Speaker 6: time in the history. And the crazy part about it.
Speaker 6: When I was doing that record, I was in a
Speaker 6: car drive in to the h CNF studio in Long
Speaker 6: Island and I had the track on. I had the
Speaker 6: track on a cassette and it was cassette back in
Speaker 6: the days, and I'm playing it and all I could
Speaker 6: do all like all like the only vibe the record,
Speaker 6: the song gave, the beat gave me was just moaning.
Speaker 6: I just kept moaning on the record. I moaned the
Speaker 6: whole drive. I just whoa roa mm hmm loveall loveall
Speaker 6: ro roa. And so when I got to the studio
Speaker 6: and Sting International put it up on on on the tape,
Speaker 6: you know, I just went around there.
Speaker 14: I just started moaning. Fun fustic Ron still looked at
Speaker 14: me and said, yo, motherfuck. He got for some lyrics
Speaker 14: and that ship.
Speaker 6: I like what you're saying, but you and it's a
Speaker 6: smooth just like saw fun like talking. And those records
Speaker 6: were all freestyle. I never wrote those records. I just
Speaker 6: it was started from moaning, wait what.
Speaker 2: Wait, the irony, the irony of you telling the story.
Speaker 2: Because even in the story of Let's get it on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is real, because.
Speaker 2: The version of Let's get it On that we know
Speaker 2: was a freestyle because basically the moment he saw Jan
Speaker 2: Hunter walk in the room.
Speaker 3: He was showing off and he freestyled.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the original Let's get It On. It was like
Speaker 9: a political song.
Speaker 3: It was like like let's let's get organized, let's get
Speaker 3: it on, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but crazy part. Crazy part I did those moaning
Speaker 6: not on the on because the Marvin Gaye version that
Speaker 6: you know of Let's Get It On that is on
Speaker 6: Bombastic was a remix. Oh, so that there's an original
Speaker 6: rich the original, which was big in every other country
Speaker 6: except the United States.
Speaker 3: I should know this.
Speaker 6: The Marvin Gaye version that you know happens to be
Speaker 6: only in North in America. That's it. In every country
Speaker 6: in the world. The original is the hip record.
Speaker 2: So when you perform it, you do which version depending
Speaker 2: on what America.
Speaker 6: Yes, in America, I use the Marvin gay Everywhere else
Speaker 6: in the country I go to the original reggae version,
Speaker 6: which is massive. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 2: Well wait, since you told that story, then I need
Speaker 2: to know. Did you ever find out what Virgin thought
Speaker 2: once you went to to m c A with it.
Speaker 2: It wasn't me because I'm almost certain that they said like, okay,
Speaker 2: well we have one hit.
Speaker 6: So ken Berry, who is of course the head of
Speaker 6: Virgin ended up moving on. There's the craziest thing. After that,
Speaker 6: I got that record. I ended up doing Maxi Priest's
Speaker 6: album at that time, and we did that Girl, which
Speaker 6: was also a top five record, right and then and
Speaker 6: then I put another record out and and it came
Speaker 6: up the same day Princess Diana died, and they just
Speaker 6: stopped playing records. They just played Candle in the Wind
Speaker 6: on every radio station.
Speaker 3: You're right, You're right, and.
Speaker 6: And and so and so my record tanked and my
Speaker 6: album tanked. And there's a guy that was the head
Speaker 6: of the record company, Ken Barryott now moved on to
Speaker 6: running you know, because he had success with Me and
Speaker 6: Letty Kravitz and Janets, so he was a big wig now.
Speaker 6: So they ended up running EMI, the Holy Emi, And
Speaker 6: there was a guy called Paul Conroy who became the president,
Speaker 6: and he just did not know what the fuck to
Speaker 6: do with me. It's like his dance Alid and so
Speaker 6: they dropped me, and they dropped me and Maxie and
Speaker 6: signed the next dance all Sensation at the time, which
Speaker 6: was being the.
Speaker 4: Man Wow OK, and same money.
Speaker 6: They dropped me, they signed Beanie Man and they were
Speaker 6: trying to get it's out of it and out of
Speaker 6: sitting there trying to did the Maya record. A couple
Speaker 6: of those records was going Patrick Moxey who was the
Speaker 6: father of He was at Payday. He ended up being
Speaker 6: the head of the head of A and R at
Speaker 6: that time and running Virgin that at that time and
Speaker 6: the whole Janet thing and he put Beanie Man with
Speaker 6: Janet Jackson all that ship. So it was so crazy
Speaker 6: about that is in the time that was going on,
Speaker 6: jam and Lewis decided to do a project for How
Speaker 6: Stella Got her Groove back. Yeah, they did the soundtrack
Speaker 6: and so I talked about that all right. Here the
Speaker 6: crazy part now Terry McMillan, who actually the story was about,
Speaker 6: who was the writer and she she did the story
Speaker 6: autobiography about herself and her courting of this guy and
Speaker 6: her He told Terry Lewis that you got to get
Speaker 6: Shaggy on that soundtrack because me and my man used
Speaker 6: to fuck to that boombastic record and Jamaica. That is
Speaker 6: true fucking story. And that's how Terry Lewis came to
Speaker 6: New York, found me and say Shaggy, I want to
Speaker 6: play a track. And the track had oh boy, I
Speaker 6: love you so and I just start when he started playing,
Speaker 6: I was like, I hold him on a load to
Speaker 6: make him oist and wet old him manoload to make
Speaker 6: him own and sweat sweet suckle into five clean now.
Speaker 6: And he's like, oh shit, oh ship, And I'm just
Speaker 6: in awe because I'm in Jimmy jamming. Terry fucking Lewis like,
Speaker 6: what the fuck. Then Terry is like, oh man, you ship,
Speaker 6: ship ship, oh ship. He called Jimmy because Jimmy was there.
Speaker 6: He called Jimmy's so, oh man, you need to hit
Speaker 6: this ship. This fucking ship, he was like. And then
Speaker 6: he started playing a bunch of records and it got
Speaker 6: like Mary J. Blige and Casey and Georgia and Boys
Speaker 6: to Bend and fucking Prince and all that. I was like,
Speaker 6: oh ship, my record ain't gonna make it. Fuck that'sh it.
Speaker 6: And just so it happened, they ended up putting the
Speaker 6: soundtrack out because at that time, when the movie came out,
Speaker 6: you put the soundtrack out without a saying, and you
Speaker 6: put the soundtrack out and radio just out of just
Speaker 6: started playing the track with me in Janet, but we
Speaker 6: didn't have single rights that song, so he couldn't be
Speaker 6: a side, couldn't. So we ended up shooting a video.
Speaker 6: Eventually the record stop blowing up and I was just
Speaker 6: going from station to station working it, and then we
Speaker 6: ended up doing a video. But when I did a video,
Speaker 6: now if you look at the video online, you'll see
Speaker 6: that Angela Bassett and Whoopee Goldberg's or who was singing
Speaker 6: the hook. Janet wasn't in it, yeah, because we couldn't
Speaker 6: get her. We couldn't get it. They wouldn't And I
Speaker 6: was a little reggae guy. She was a major, major
Speaker 6: pop stars. They were in virgin Patrick Moxley wasn't going
Speaker 6: to get it give her to me either at that
Speaker 6: point because he had just dropped me. They drop and
Speaker 6: Cige Beanie. Now I catched this fucking record and it
Speaker 6: was like, I ain't giving you Janet that you meet
Speaker 6: me look, and then doing a join.
Speaker 8: With Janet with the Neptunes exactly, which that sold a
Speaker 8: little bit of them, so I don't right, I mean,
Speaker 8: And then and and the Neptunes did that.
Speaker 6: Ship and they spent two million on video and old
Speaker 6: Ship and My Ship became number one. And then right
Speaker 6: after that, the next record that really popped up for me.
Speaker 3: Was was it wasn't me?
Speaker 6: And then I was off, Yeah it was off?
Speaker 5: Was that another kind of like freestyles? It wasn't me?
Speaker 6: It was that?
Speaker 5: What was that?
Speaker 6: It wasn't me? It wasn't me. I got from I
Speaker 6: was watching Yeah, Eddie Murphy, I was watching Raw.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it wasn't me.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah. And I saw that and I was was like, yo,
Speaker 6: that's the song. And I just we just cultivated from Raw.
Speaker 6: I saw Eddie and and Bahamas a total man because
Speaker 6: we were we were back there. I was like, you know,
Speaker 6: you know, I took that whole ship from it. And
Speaker 6: he said, so, motherfucker, you owe me wrong.
Speaker 7: I knew he was.
Speaker 4: At this point, Shaggy, I know the answer to you
Speaker 4: feeling like you're getting your flowers from America, I feel
Speaker 4: like you, I don't know if I'm assuming that that's
Speaker 4: like not as much, but I wanted to know how
Speaker 4: do you feel about getting your flowers from the folks
Speaker 4: at Jamaica, Like do you feel at this point that
Speaker 4: they are you respected as a legend that you are?
Speaker 4: And it felt like that while you do because if
Speaker 4: you doing a Spice record, I felt like that was
Speaker 4: a beautiful kind of wrap around like they respect you,
Speaker 4: you respect them, or or is that just.
Speaker 6: As It's been a journey. It's been a journey from
Speaker 6: me being starting at dancehall, then becoming pop and then
Speaker 6: not having no respect at home to me doing a
Speaker 6: song called church I literally got off gifting to do
Speaker 6: dance All if you if you remember quest the record
Speaker 6: called some of Them, some of them with with Olivier,
Speaker 6: with Olivia I ended I ended up doing that record
Speaker 6: even though the record company didn't want me to do
Speaker 6: that record, because I wanted to do dance you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying, And I knew that I had to
Speaker 6: get back into dance All to get the street back.
Speaker 6: And then right after that, when it put it out,
Speaker 6: it didn't do very well because they didn't know what
Speaker 6: to do with it, and then they dropped me. And right
Speaker 6: after they dropped me, I wrote Church Eden, which was
Speaker 6: a massive nineteen weeks number one in the dance hall,
Speaker 6: and then just overnight everybody in the streets started fucking
Speaker 6: with me, and then the prime minister at the time,
Speaker 6: Portia Simpson, was a woman. She was the first woman
Speaker 6: running for prime minister, and she ended up using strength
Speaker 6: of a Woman as her theme song, and every little
Speaker 6: ghetto kid was singing that shit, and that became massive.
Speaker 6: And then I ended up doing my charity concert, which
Speaker 6: was Shaggy and Friends, where I raised money for the
Speaker 6: Bustamande Hospital for Children, you know, and I had everybody
Speaker 6: from Lauren Hill to fucking voice them into everybody. Sting
Speaker 6: was the last person that did it, and I'd done that,
Speaker 6: so it became a respectful thing after a while where
Speaker 6: people be like, Okay, just do is the true to
Speaker 6: I'm fucking with him? You know what I mean? And
Speaker 6: that became that, and so it became that, and I
Speaker 6: had the respect of Jamaica, but I didn't have the
Speaker 6: respect of the industry. The industry was still like, Okay,
Speaker 6: this guy isn't authentic. And that came in part with
Speaker 6: Sting saying, you know, this guy is a genius or
Speaker 6: as he would put it on interviews, which blew my
Speaker 6: mind because I think of him as like a musical
Speaker 6: genius god. But he would have these conversations like I've
Speaker 6: never seen anybody write songs as fast as this guy
Speaker 6: and does it and he doesn't play an instrument, and
Speaker 6: it's always and it always freaked him out. He always says,
Speaker 6: I don't understand how you're so melodic and don't play
Speaker 6: you know, it's just it's all in your head. And
Speaker 6: I'll sit around a mic and freestyle. Could we come
Speaker 6: from that? And I'm spitting these melodies and shit like that,
Speaker 6: and we go down the right learryside and be like okay.
Speaker 6: So he would get that, So he validated me on
Speaker 6: that level. This true validation comes now from the Spice record,
Speaker 6: which I wrote, you know uh and got was a
Speaker 6: shaggy record first, and I literally took it and flipped
Speaker 6: it to the Spice and then we put Sean Ball
Speaker 6: on it, and that became not just a massive record
Speaker 6: on the global side of things, but it's all on
Speaker 6: a big TikTok record, but it was the streets and
Speaker 6: it was produced by me. It was good. And then
Speaker 6: and then there were other things too, like for instance,
Speaker 6: Cartel did slow Motion, which was a record was one
Speaker 6: of his first big records, which which I produced and
Speaker 6: put on my leg you know what I'm saying, and
Speaker 6: and and and you know, because I went there and
Speaker 6: took his voice and everything and got it, got it done.
Speaker 6: And there's so many other reggae records, dance, all records
Speaker 6: that I've done that were big that people didn't know
Speaker 6: I wrote, but I wrote you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: I'm talking hardcore ship like cheek.
Speaker 14: A Gallic you don't care remember me see and our
Speaker 14: air probably amount of money.
Speaker 6: That all of these Shiit maxipriests whatever your eyes can see.
Speaker 6: All of these records were records that were street records
Speaker 6: that I either wrote or produced. And then so after
Speaker 6: a while people just started to be like, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 6: we're fucking with him.
Speaker 2: Well that was actually my question, like, is so thank you?
Speaker 2: Is there anything that you have yet to achieve? Like
Speaker 2: because I know, like you know, over tievers might necessarily
Speaker 2: feel like there's one more itch.
Speaker 3: They got to scratch and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And I know that even for us, like we've had
Speaker 2: that same journey where you know, our audience who does
Speaker 2: not look like us, embraces this ship out of us,
Speaker 2: and you know, but we longed for our hometown, our
Speaker 2: peoples to really embrace us, which I feel like, you know,
Speaker 2: with this next project we're doing, we're going to get
Speaker 2: that moment.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, you answer the question.
Speaker 6: To me, would you? And I'm just going to get
Speaker 6: this for you. When I remember sitting with your band
Speaker 6: and I was, you know, I was talking I think
Speaker 6: it was your trumpet player or something.
Speaker 15: I was talking to it and we're talking about just
Speaker 15: how this gig, the late night game affected your whole ship.
Speaker 6: And he was like, Hey, it's a different thing. You know.
Speaker 6: We got we got dental and medical.
Speaker 3: I got the best teeth in the business, bro.
Speaker 6: And it dawned on me at that point. I was like, Wow, Yeah,
Speaker 6: that's that's some real ship you could and and what
Speaker 6: you have done with the platform. You know, even when
Speaker 6: I was so I think I saw you and just
Speaker 6: was telling you how genuinely happy I was to see
Speaker 6: you when the night even though it was really crowded
Speaker 6: with that bullshit that happened. But you know, but you
Speaker 6: I was just really because I kind of know your journey,
Speaker 6: you know, you know, and and and I know even
Speaker 6: some of it even to Scott, because when I was
Speaker 6: in Miami with Scott and just kind of see how
Speaker 6: the whole ship go and just know your journey being
Speaker 6: on an MCA, and just to see what you have
Speaker 6: done with the platform, you know what I mean, it
Speaker 6: is it is just commendable and I just want to
Speaker 6: take that time out to say thank you brother. You
Speaker 6: know what I mean. I appreciate it has not gone
Speaker 6: on unnoticed.
Speaker 3: Thank you, man, dude, this is this has been amazing.
Speaker 2: I'm not blowing smoking whatever like and I'm not even
Speaker 2: trying trying to kick it like oh well, I little expectation. No,
Speaker 2: but man, like you, I need to. I gotta tell
Speaker 2: the world like you are. You're a historian, like right now,
Speaker 2: history and misinformation is like for me, that's like almost
Speaker 2: job one, like uncovering history, making sure that you know,
Speaker 2: we we know our culture.
Speaker 7: And that findings findings exactly.
Speaker 3: So this this is a very important episode of course.
Speaker 3: Love Suprema. I thank you for doing this for us.
Speaker 6: Man, thank you, thank you, and I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I want to be having sugar, Steve ye unpaid Bill.
Speaker 2: It's quest Love, Quest Love Supreme. Another classic, under the Bus,
Speaker 2: under the Hood and the Notch. I don't know, like
Speaker 2: the proper clue. What should I say, Steve, I don't know.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Shaggy is a Christmas album.
Speaker 5: Merry Christmas, Shaggy.
Speaker 6: Yeah, It's a Christmas album of dancer because when we
Speaker 6: were young, all week. All we got at Christmas was
Speaker 6: that Bing Crosby the record Christmas record, and my grandmother
Speaker 6: killed me with that ship. It was like, I'm like,
Speaker 6: and ain't nothing Bing Crosby is singing. Ain't nothing was
Speaker 6: looking like because I'm in Jamaica, there's no no you
Speaker 6: know what I mean, There's no there's no Santa Claus
Speaker 6: in the chimney, there's no none of that. It don't
Speaker 6: look like my Christmas. So I wanted to do an
Speaker 6: album that looked like how my Christmas Christmas, which was
Speaker 6: ragging them up in christ with some Christmas in the
Speaker 6: Islands and those songs that's on that record. And I
Speaker 6: got from Neil to to Ding Dong to Julia Reid
Speaker 6: to Bounty Killer, everybody on singing Bounty Killer beating him
Speaker 6: at everybody shouldn't see. All of them is on this
Speaker 6: record singing or versions of our dance off Christmas records,
Speaker 6: Christmas songs. You know, I mean, it ain't Mariah carry ship,
Speaker 6: but you know.
Speaker 7: It we can smoke to it.
Speaker 3: Brother, Thank thank you, man. I appreciate you for doing
Speaker 3: this the salad and talking to.
Speaker 5: Us so much.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, well we'll see all the next
Speaker 2: go around, of course, Love Supreme Brother Shaggy.
Speaker 1: What above Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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