You don't create legends out of other legends.
— Shaggy
I got to prove myself all the time. And that's good. It makes you stronger.
The pop market is a very fickle market, and that's why for me to go into the teeny-pop, 'TRL' mode, it's not really for me.
I think that anybody, once we leave Jamaica, automatically, any citizen becomes an ambassador for the flag, for Jamiaca. It's a country that's so rich in culture. We even have a bobsled team, and we ain't even got snow. We do everything in extreme.
I like that raw energy that I get from an audience.
The Irish want to smile, and they want to have fun.
I fought for the U.S. government. I live in New York. I pay taxes in America.
We don't have all this gay-bashing crime. You don't see that. It's not there. That is not really happening in Jamaica. But because a few artists basically sing it and put records out and the media runs with it, then the stigma becomes big, and now we're trapped with that whole thing. It's really sad.
I like things that catch your ears.
I have a festival called Shaggy and Friends, which is a charity event to raise funds for a hospital.
If you look at reggae and dancehall artists in general, there isn't really a big success story. A Shabba Ranks or a Yellowman might have a hit, but there's never a follow up. There's no consistency.
The mainstream is very fickle. If you're hot, they'll mess with you. If you're not, it's out of there.
My career has taken so many directions.
After I made 'Oh Carolina' in the 1990s, the record company wanted me to copy that sound, and I refused.
I did a record with Janet Jackson, and it went to the top of the charts, and we had all of these complications, and she couldn't be in the video and couldn't do anything for the record. I went through something similar with Pitbull. I think it works really well for a lot of other artists, but for me, it just doesn't work that well.
I go to bed late, and I wake up early; in this game, to win it, you have to do that. The military prepared me to do that: you go to bed late and wake up early.
I have to be me, which is, don't like a lot of crowds, don't like a lot of attention - kind of being by myself.
I've seen the harshest of reggae purists come give me my props because I've been at it for so long... They've seen me come from the hardest of hard-core dancehall to where I am, and they've heard my music change through the years. Some might not agree, but they respect.
'Shaggy' is a brand.
There are those women who degrade the name of women, and there are men who degrade the name of women. But for the most part, we can't live without them.
I really didn't think I was going to make records to where I make a living out of it.
I'm no stranger to making timeless music.
'Fields of Gold' is my favourite record.
When we do reggae, it's normally a one-chord or a two-chord, or whatever it is. With Sting, there'll be chord changes, key changes.
I like having big hooks and big records and sing-a-longs.
If you listen to all my earlier stuff, it wasn't 'authentic reggae,' so to speak.
I just do what sounds good to me, and people seem to like it.
I prefer working with artists who are prepared to get down in the dungeons and get the job done.
You got to understand: when you go into a record company and give them a something that doesn't sound like what's on the radio, it's hard to sell it.
I'm Shaggy. I'm a business.
I don't want another 'It Wasn't Me.' I've been asked that question so many times. Do I want a song of that magnitude? Great, always, but not the same type of music.
I'm not big on collaborations with 'superstars.' It generally doesn't work for me.
You might be like, 'I want really big hits.' But when you get really big hits, and your label is making $150 million, they are people who are now interested in what you do. They are going to begin to tell you what to do, and so you become important. So your creative freedom - you're not going to have that again.
Even my mom is calling me Shaggy now, which is weird, because Shaggy is more like a character that I play. Shaggy is flamboyant; he's cocky. And I can't live that twenty-four hours a day - hell, no.
My thing is to get people out of the stigma of what a reggae artist should be like.
I want to build a fanbase. I want people to like my albums even more so than singles.
My existence wouldn't be the same if there weren't women.
When I was doing dancehalls, nobody was doing well in dancehalls. Dancehalls was not mainstream music that was blazing charts and knocking down barriers. This was an underground phenom.
If you look at my track record, there was nothing on radio that sounded like 'Oh Carolina,' 'Mr Bombastic' when they came out.
America is a symbol of freedom - it's a symbol of democracy - and if that is threatened, we have to take this platform and use it to be a voice for the voiceless.
Gays and lesbians should have the same rights as anybody else, and when they're in Jamaica, they do have the same rights.
I always had these big records with people who were relatively unknown.
The Police, they were the guys that were like the gateway to the mainstream. In England, there was a very strong reggae movement that was going on. Anything that was happening in reggae happened out of England. They were brilliant. They could spot a sound that was cool, the 'it' sound.
I've been criticized for doing so - crossover music. But I never claimed to be a pure dancehall artist.
I fought for this country.
I've never been one that really won with major-name collaborators. You take, for instance, 'Angel' with Rayvon. 'It Wasn't Me' was with Rikrok. Nobody knew who those guys were.
I've always been faced with all kinds of criticism. People were saying, 'Oh, Shaggy is pop. He can't do dancehall,' even though I came from dancehall.
I just put people on my records that I think bring something really unique to the song, and that's what's going to make it live over time. Not the fact that an artist might be 'hot' at the time.
Ireland kind of reminds me of Jamaicans - there are a lot of Irish people in Jamaica. It's the blend of their easy-going nature, cool mentality, and warmth.
I got the name in primary school because my hair was shaggy. And I didn't like it; I thought it was derogatory.
