June 27, 2019 • 37 mins
If you want lessons in reinventing your brand while keeping it relevant for decades, Shaggy is a smart place to start. Fresh off his tour with Sting, the two-time Grammy Award winning artist sits down with Bob to talk about why he risked going AWOL every week to record his first album, how he refreshes his brand while keeping it pure to his Jamaican roots, and why he always embraces the creative energy of the low periods.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of I
Heart Radio. If you get up every morning and dream it,
go hard for it, that you will never hear me
say I am the most talented reggae artist or dance
all artists. Far from it. I hold my own and
I do my thing unique enough, and I've probably the
(00:21):
most accomplished. But you could have talent and work ethic.
No one will ever know you. You could have work
ethic ten percent talent and be the biggest star in
the world. That's what it boils down to. I'm Bob Pittman.
(00:45):
Welcome to Mathemagic, where we talk about that magic formula
of marketing. We talked to great magicians and great mathematicians,
and we have a fantastic magician here today, Blessings Shaggy.
You want a Grammy and was the nine first you
(01:09):
want a Grammy in two thousand nineteen. Yeah, or your
collaboration was sting and that might say at all, how
do you do something for that long and keep it going?
You know? It took the first Grammy kind of for
granted in a way I wanted for Mr Boombastic, I
was the guy that was breaking through all the barriers
with Old Carolina. It was the first number one dance
(01:31):
all record in the UK, and I came to Bombastic
and followed up. Normally, when the most diancel artists after
they get a number one, the follow up his heart,
you know. But I stepped up to the plate and
I wrote Mr. Bombastic and I delivered it and it
debuted at number one in the British Chard first day
out and it was the first time that was ever
done in reggae's history period. And our good friend Chris Blackwell,
(01:56):
there was a binning war when I had Old Carolina
in the chart set number one, because that was an
unsigned act that was number one in the British Shark.
And Susan Newman, who was a really good friend of his,
who was his right hand her and I had a
great relationship, and I really wanted to be signed on
Island because that was the home of Bob Marley and
Jim Mcliffe and all my all my heroes. But I'm
driving in a car with my then manager going to
(02:19):
sign a deal memoir. I think if I can recall properly,
and I got a call from a gentleman by the
native ken Berry that time I think. He was the
chairman of Virgin Records, and he offered me a million
pounds and that time it was unheard of in reggae
music for an artist to get that kind of money.
And so we stopped the car and I said, wow,
you know, I have a great relationship with Chris and Suzette,
but I might need to go here what this guy
(02:40):
has to say. So I turned the car and went
back to Virgin, but met with him the same day
and I said, what a big office and he says, yes,
matches my ego in my offer. And I called Chris
Blackwell at that time to see if he would match it,
and he said, too rich for me. I've never paid
that much for reggae us and I'm I'm not about
(03:01):
to now. And we debuted at number one with Mr Bombastic.
Ken Berry says, it's funny Chris would say that I
made my million back just on Old Carolina, which which
was kind of weird to me. It was like wow.
Years after, I was at Golden nine and Chris and
I were joking about it, because we're still good friends
to this day, and he said, Shaggy, was it something?
(03:23):
I said? I said, maybe it was what you didn't say.
But I took the whole Grammy thing for like granted,
and I was nominated I think seven times after that
and never got it. I was always beaten, either by
somebody who was a Marley or something or something just
always lost. So after a while I was like, Wow,
I wonder if I'm really gonna get back one. And
(03:44):
then I did this project, which I really didn't think
I was going to get a Grammy for this project
because it was kind of out of nowhere. It's kind
of weird, staying shaggy. People ask a question like what
is this and go figure here we are? You know
that Jamaican in New York, that Jamaica can in New York? Right?
You were born in Kingston, Born and rising Kingston, still live.
(04:05):
At eighteen, you moved in with your mom in Brooklyn,
joined the Marines, went to war. Yeah, and then all
this other stuff goes. We're gonna connect the dots in
a minute, but first you in sixty seconds. You don't
mind the test? Do you go ahead? Okay, Okay, here
we go. Knock it out. Cats are dogs, Cats beat
(04:25):
your mountains. Beach definitely, Beer wine or tequila. Tequila definitely tequila, Tequila,
ram still tequila. I've gotta like that. Boats or planes.
I'm a boat guy. Sunrise or Sunsets, Sunrise Brooklyn or Kingston. Kingston.
Definitely Bob Marley or James Brown. Oh that's a tough one.
(04:47):
That's a tough one because I've never met Bob Marley
and he's always been my hero. But I've met James
Brown and he was such a huge fan and a
huge inspiration to me. I'll have to tie on that one. Okay,
we'll give you a tie. What's your favorite city to
tour Africa? The whole continent of Africa. Uganda is cool,
Kenya Ghana. I just love torning out because you get
(05:07):
these massive crowds. It's like the whole country comes out.
Secret talent I could draw. Would you'd never eat? Who would?
I'd never eat? You'd never eat? And things that smell bad.
I'm not good with food. It doesn't smell nice. Most
musical person you know except you, staying childhood hero, my mother,
worst bad you participated in I think Breakdance. It was
(05:28):
kind of weird for me because I was awkward at it.
The best cool side drink coconut water. What do you
think you wanted to be when you were growing up Fireman.
As I got older, even when I was doing singing,
I always looked at you Hefner's job and say, hey,
that would be a cool job. Best performer you watched
Michael Jackson? What topic can you talk about? Forever? Love? Who? Yeah? Good?
(05:53):
End that? Okay, that's the quiz. Now let's get into
it all right. Cool. I've got a place in Jubaka.
You and I met there. I don't know how many
years ago. Many you give master tours of Kingston. That
was the beneficiary of it, except when that pit bowl
almost ate me alive when you was trying to talk
to who I was trying to talk to. So is
Jamaica where your heart is? And how do you think
(06:16):
it shapes who you are and your music? I think
it's everything. Jamaica is where the root of it is
and where the energy comes from and the drive because
I am the first at many things in dance, all
and reggae, and I'm big on people telling me I
can't do it and I have to prove them wrong.
I'm big on that. It's like a fire lid onto
(06:37):
me when they try to tell me that I can.
Do you think Jamaica gives you that backbone? Yes? Yes,
imagine doing a dance all record and trying to get
it played on popular radio. To this day, there's still
not a reggae formula or a format for reggae music.
There's a format of hip hop, there's a format of
(06:57):
R and B, rock pop, whatever it is. There is
no format for reggae. But yet still this art farm
has now become somewhat of the sound of popular music now,
from the Rihannas to the Justin Bieber's do whatever it is,
go back to staying in the Police, and you can
sting in the Police. When they started, The Police were
(07:18):
the first white reggae band and they were part of
the gate opening because reggae bands at the time could
not be played on major radio stations. Unfortunate because most
of them because they were black, you know, and these
guys were some white guys were playing a hybrid version
of it that got on mainstream radio. And so now
the real reggae guys like the Steel Poles and the
(07:39):
Asods and these guys could basically come in and say, hey,
what are you talking about. You're playing those guys, what
do you think they're playing, you know, and Sting was
gracious enough to always support them pay homage to them,
and this is kind of what we did with this
project going back. So let's talk a little bit about
we're on the subject of Jamaica longevity. I mean, the
very few people in the music business have the kind
(08:00):
of longevity, staying power, eternal appeal you do. Where do
you think that comes from? Is that related to Jamaica
if you go back there for nourishment and come back
into the world. You know, Bob, When I came out
with Carolina, it was a cover of the Folk Brothers
Oh Carolina, and I covered it, but I also put
my twist to it. It was such a massive number
(08:22):
one around the world that they labeled me a want
in Wonder and it was the big headlines in almost
every British tabloid. Kind of why I think probably Chris
didn't come to the table, but we ended up lasting
this long and I think I am the guy that
no one ever saw coming at all, and I'm still
(08:46):
today the guy that no one sees coming. So Jamaica
does have a lot to do with that, because I
somehow I have a love hate relationship with being beyond
the dog. I kind of like to be beyond the
dog because when you win, it feels better. I kind
of hate being beyond the dog because the journey is harder.
But my grandmother always says, nothing good in life is easy.
(09:09):
You and I both know a lot of people who
started out very humble, nice, and they unleashed a monster
when they became stars. It seems like the bigger you are,
the harder you work. You're one of those guys. It's
working as if this is your first record and your
first time out every time, and what in your background
gave you that. I came from nothing. I consider myself
the luckiest human being unearthed. Nothing I take for granted. Nothing.
(09:35):
Every single time I get up, I feel like, Wow,
I survived the war. I come from a from Raytown
in Jamaica. There's no one in my family that has
ever gone to college. I'm putting somebody in college, a
few in college now. I was the first to be married,
I was the first to kind of engage in family.
I was a dreamer, very very fortunate, and I don't
(09:56):
take anything for granted. So Shaggy, how did you get
the name Shaggy? And at what age. It's probably probably
around thirteen fourteen. I was a skinny guy, totally skinny
guy with a lot of hair, and my hair was
really really light, so they said I looked like Shaggy
from Scooby Doo and they called me Shaggy. I hated
(10:19):
the name Shaggy dog. Say dog, Shaggy dog. Yes, it
was a tease. I left Jamaica, came to America and
everybody staw calling me Richard. I was like, oh God,
that's great, and then I'm run into some Jamaican on
Flatbush was like yo, Shoggy Yoo was like, who's that?
Do I know you? Yeah? Then all my friends around me,
oh shocking, and then it just clicked to them. But
I went to England after all. Carolina. I was in
(10:42):
a car being picked up at the airport from the
record company guy and Old Carolina came on on the
radio and Radio one and the DJ was like, oh,
I can't believe I'm playing a record from a blog,
bad Damn and Shaggy. It was making a big deal
out and I said, why what what? What's the big deal?
He says, so you don't know what shag made? Like
now do you explained to the man like Ah, all
(11:05):
of a sudden, my name was the coolest name I
have had. So that's why I tell the chicks these days, Hey,
how did you get your name? Shag You never had
a van? Did you like Shaggy? No? No, no. I
toured in the van in Europe, though it wasn't the
mystery machine. There as much mystery going on there. Let's
(11:26):
take it a step back. Why did you join the Marines?
I was in Flatbush at the time, and it was
flat Bush and the real Flatbush since not Ginger five
Flatbush as it is now heavy West Indian area. At
that time, I went to Rasmus Hall. It was an
academy of the arts at the time, so I I
excelled in the arts, acting music. I was good at
art and design. It was good at but I believe
(11:48):
with my mother at the time and all my friends
were just doing everything that was wrong. I was in
Clark's the Nostro and I was selling weed, coke, everything
that was bad, hanging with everybody. It was bad. But
I'm also smart and off bobt in order. If somebody's
walking and they step in the hole and break their leg,
common sense, if I'm walking behind them step over it.
So it didn't take long for a couple of my
friends to be getting locked up, and I decided, hey,
(12:10):
you know this ain't me remembers the Twosa. I think.
I walked down to Flatbush Junction. I walked in a
recruiting office and I stepped in and there was some posters.
One was the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, and
the Marines. And I stepped over to the marinea in
the form. I was like, that looked like something I
could get laden because at that time, at that age,
(12:33):
it's all it was all about women. And I asked
the guy, said I want to get into this, and
he was like, uh, you know, asking my age. And
he says, you know, I have to take a test.
And I took the test. He's like, well, I could
get you out of here next month, and I was like, no,
I need to get out of here by Friday. And
I told her the recruit I said, if I'm not
doing it by Friday, I'm not doing it at all.
(12:54):
And he says, hold up, and he went to this
other guy, and I guess they kind of swapped, and
you know, I ended up leaving being like the following
week Friday or something like that, and I went into
the military. And at that time, when I stepped on
the yellow foot prints and the guys screaming in my face,
I was like, what have I got myself into? But
I really just did it just to get off the streets.
What did you learn from the military? That was my
(13:16):
biggest teaching, I should say that experience. I started out
in a platoon of thinking about maybe a hundred hundred
twenty or something like that, or a hundred, I can't remember.
We graduated it about thirty or forty amount of people
that dropped out, and I think it was like thirteen
weeks in basic training and these guys were screaming in
(13:39):
your face. I almost didn't make it funny enough because
I couldn't swim from Jamaica. And it was a running
joke with I can't now, but it was a running
joke from all the drill instructors. Jamaica, boy, you can't swim,
are you vir? Jamaica gas whim and you're on it
(14:00):
up on smoke head, you know. And they kept having
me hacking him all the time. Now, drive to New
York City every single weekend, which is considered a wall
just to do music. So I drove nine hours to
nine hours from just to make records, and the eighteen
hours every weekend, and I would sometime come back late
and I would get a wall. There was a colonel,
(14:21):
Colonel Evans was the Jamaican Attashi. He was my CEO,
and he always tried to locale for me. Once he left,
there was another colonel in charge, and I got bit
and I would do it every weekend. Actually, I voiced
O Carolina I in a studio in my full uniform. Wow,
still weird uniform because I wouldn't get stop on the highway. Really,
(14:43):
I didn't know that. So yeah, whenever the state trooper
pulls you over if you're in your uniform. There ex
military tours like okay, guys, slow down. You know you
actually got chipped out to the first Gulf four right,
and how did that affect you? I mean, did you
actually see battle? Were you in the middle of it? Yes?
You know what people do twenty years in the military.
I never see you are I do four and I'm
(15:03):
caught up in the desert storm. It was a learning
experience for me too, because it made me appreciate a
lot of things. It's funny what you appreciate the simple
things in life. Friendship, your mother's cooking a warm bed
when you're in the middle of a fighting field with
none of that. And it did a lot for me.
For race. There was a gentleman I was guarding a
(15:26):
fifty cow with in Saudi Arabia and he was a
white guy, and he was explained to me that then
he came to the military, is the first time he
saw a black man or met one. And he had
explained to me his lifestyle and his parents. And so
I would say racism is taught, because here's the guy
that I'm having a conversation with him and I became friends.
(15:48):
And now it's him watching my back, I'm watching his
back and we're guarding a fifty cow. And so how
did you get Marines the musician? I did it because well,
you know, I was in Rasmus Hall and there were
little clicks in the lunch room in Brooklyn. So you
had the Haitian click, the Trinity click, the Jamaican click,
(16:10):
you know, and in the Jamaican click, I was the
guy that could spit rhymes and it would beat the
bench I missed. I said you know, they would be
lives out seeing that the lunch thing, and I mean
just I would say all these rhymes and I was
really really good at it. I look at your shirt,
your pants, your shoes, whatever it is. And when I
realized when I did that, I got attention. And I
(16:33):
realized when I did that, I got chicks, lots of girls,
and they were all, you know, they always wanted me
to talk about their hair and issue and all that.
And as that went along, somebody heard me, a guy
called Kingsley, and I said, I'm going to take you
over to a place, and they brought me to a
place called Gibraltar sound System and I ended up spitting
some some lyrics tonight with a couple of guys, you know,
just battling and trading rhymes. And they took me to
(16:56):
a studio called Don Juan Studio in Brooklyn and I
cut a record, and then it introduced me to another
guy called Sting in National. I cut another record, and
after that I was doing a circuit. I started making
a reputation for myself and one of those songs became
a hit, and then another one and another one. Then
after a while I had these ghetto fabulous songs, these
(17:17):
underground songs, and now I was getting to every club
for free. I drank for free, and I left with
the prettiest Jake. I'm like, I'm on cloud nine, you know.
I lived in Bedforst Divers and at this time little
apartment Dearren Madison between Lewis and Marcus Garvey. I had
a great time, not a wars in the world. And
one of those songs I wrote while I was in
the military too, was Oth Carolina. It was a license
(17:41):
to Green Sleeve in England and they had major distribution
through BMG, and it just took off like like crazy.
And at that time I was doing background from Maxi Priest.
So the universe just kind of somehow put me with
Maxie and I went out with Maxie for five hundred
bucks a week, touring with him, and he taught me
how to do interviews and taught me how to speak properly,
(18:03):
and taught me what how to perform mentor Yes, it's
kind of a mentor. And there were good things he
did and bad things he did. Some of the bad
things I looked at it was like okay, you know,
but it was a big learning process for me. So
this is math and Magic. It's really a podcast for marketers.
Shaggy is a big brand. Do you consciously think about
(18:24):
managing that brand? What's shaggy and what's not shaggy? And
what you can do and can't do? Yes? And how
do you think about brand Shaggy. I am a direct
representative of brand Jamaica. I look at it like that,
everything about Brand Jamaica comes with a cool factor. I
was offered to do I think was dancing with a star,
(18:46):
one of them things some management I had was bringing
to me and I refused, and you know, they were like,
what are you doing? And you're you're being difficult and
I'm like, nah, can you imagine me shaggy, iconic guy
out of Jamaica dancing around entire No, it's not gonna happen, bro,
you know what I mean. But I find now what
brand Shaggy is. There's a lot of people that don't
(19:08):
know a lot about me and what I am. You know,
Mr Bombastic, you know, love me, love me know Angel.
Some of these songs are very cheeky and some of
them somewhat novelty, and they think that's the basis of
what you are. You know it wasn't me, but there
was also ten million people or so that bought Hot
Shot and realized there was a lot of depth within
(19:30):
that album. I'm a guy that's I'm ginna pig at it.
You know, I'm not the guy to choose characters who
are good for me. Bad management people would not much vision,
people would low self esteem people. It's just part of
my journey. I'm not mad at any of it because
I learned from every single one of it and has
made me a stronger person today. And I actually do
(19:50):
think my best years are ahead of me. And You've
got a brand that has worked for a number of generations.
And there's probably the people in the mid nineties I
thought of you was one thing. People today probably think
of you as something else or know you for something else.
How do you tie all that together? Well, it is
crazy in the sense because I used to be at
(20:10):
Rocket Studio up here and I Puffy at the time
was he was at Uptown Records and he was an intern.
So I'm in the time with Joe to see heavity.
He was a really good friend. He was Jamaican, so
I'm from that era. So I saw when jay Z
got here. You remember being on the road when Beyonce
and Destiny's Child we were doing radio together, you know.
(20:32):
I remember when in Sync was opening for Shaggy, you know,
and Spice Girl was opening for Shaggy. And in Europe
when we had Mr. Bombastic was the biggest thing and
they were just coming up. I remember all of that.
The other day, I was having a conversation. We're talking
about Joe to See and I I was like, yeah, mat
Jody was. And then the kid that was with me,
I guess he's probably around one, like, who's Joe to See?
(20:53):
And I imagine looks at me and says, do you
realize what this is? He doesn't know who Joe to
See is, but knows who Shaggy is. Isn't that crazy?
And to have lasted this long and I'm having the
biggest year in reggae for me, just winning a Grammy,
best Selling Reggae Album, best Selling Tour, Wanted the best
Selling Tour, Number four, most successful tour for the year.
(21:17):
At fifty, You're just a baby, you know, Bob. That's
why I like talking to you. Always have older friends.
It's it worked like a charge. Just hold on a second,
because we've got so much more to talk about. We'll
be back after a quick break. Welcome back to math
and magic. We're here with Shaggy. You've traveled a whole
(21:42):
lot and talking about that too. How do you balance
that with the family and what influence does that have
on you? My partner is the whole, the down person
and the person that mops up, and how the fires
and do all of that. You really got to give
credit where that is doing. Mad That's a lot because
I am the guy to has always gone. But to
manage that family situation, you really have to give and take.
(22:04):
I would say, when this is over with and I
go home, your feelings get hit sometimes because things goes
on without you and it is tough and you get
into arguments and you get into fights and you kind
of have the weather through it. But I like at
the end of the day when I look at it
and I'm like, Wow, this is what I've done. This
is great, beautiful home, beautiful life, beautiful life. This is great.
(22:27):
Quite an arc. Yeah, what's your process for making the music?
I mean, how does it start, Where does this idea
come from? And how does it turn into something? I
don't like to follow the trend of things. If you
look at the history of my songs, we know Carolina
came out, there's nothing in radio that sounded like it.
When Mr Bombast came out, you were like, what the
(22:49):
what is this? But it was good. When I came
with it wasn't me. We were in in sync and
Britney spirits mode. Radio is like what is this? So
I've always maintained that because that's what excites me, is
coming with that lift feel, thing that is disruptive, an
ear grabber, like what is this? And it's a balance,
(23:11):
an act because you can't be too left field to
where radio is like, oh my, well, how does this work?
It has to be a balance, and it's finding that
right balance that works. And it's a gut instinct of
me feeling like, oh yeah, this is great. Do you
think about it to get there or does it just
pop in your head? Sometimes I think about it. I
give you a quick example. I was doing pop music
(23:34):
and I was doing very well at it, but I
wasn't getting in respect in Jamaica for dance all. And
I started a dance all. So it starts to bother
me and I wanted to come back and get a
dance all hit and it had to be a big one,
and I thought about it. I thought about it, and
I took every record that's doing well and I listened
to them. Elephant Man was doing this ponder river dance stuff,
(23:56):
and then there was Aunt Kilho was doing the hardcore
gun and stuff. And I was like, how do I
it in. I'm not the dancing guy that's not Shaggy,
I'm not the gun talking guy that's not me either.
I went to a party in Brooklyn with a friend
and a young lady was with me, and she brought
a bag with a dress. So we did the party
and she went into the bathroom and she changed into
(24:18):
another dress. This was daylight coming up now, and she says,
can you dropped me to church? We just covered from
a dance, hardcore reggae dance in Brooklyn. We drove into
the church. I dropped her off. I couldn't get out
of my head. She just flipped from being this girl
that was cocking up in about the right, you know,
(24:39):
doing all the nastiest dances. And she put a dress
on and I had and she was at church. It
was that simple. And then the idea came to me
for a song called Church Eden. I wanted it to
sound different that I I wanted to hear church bells, I
wanted to hear church choirs, but I wanted the conversation
to be about the hypocrisy of church, but in a
(25:00):
comedic way. And I wrote it and we put it
out and it was nineteen weeks at number one in
the dance hall and I was back with the whole
dance hall crew. Now didn't buy into me as a
dance all artists, as you know, but it opened the
door to all my other stuff, you know. And it
was so massive, So it's always calculated. When I was
(25:22):
doing this record with Sting, Martin was like, should we
go to Jamaica and do the record? And I was like, well,
why don't you use my team in New York. We
did it in New York. I was like, yeah, but
we need the authenticity of Jamaica and everything. I said,
we have another way come to Shaggy and Friends. It's
a win win. It's the most publicized you know about it,
(25:43):
and we did it. It It was a massive concert on
the laws of the Prime Minister's resident twenty thou people
and we made a million US for the hospital. We
gave it in and we did a great video in
the streets of Kingston and everybody loved them, and everybody
loved the project. And here we are, let's talk about
your charity. I went down you gave me the tour
(26:03):
of the children's hospitals. Pretty remarkable, and you have taken
that as your pet project. Give us a little bit
of insight into why, how, and and where you are today.
A friend of mine, Tony Kelly, who I'm doing my
new album but now, he had a son but a
name of Shane, and his son was sick and I
went to the hospital to night to visit this kid.
And while I was waiting there, I had the opportunity
(26:25):
to talk to the nurses and doctors and they were
telling me all the remarkable things that they were doing,
you know, like, for instance, to prep for a surgery,
to warm the blood the blood is frozen, they put
it in a pot with some water with a temperature
gaijer and you know, warm it up until it was
the right thing, because they didn't have a machine called
the blow to warmer. And I realized they were doing
(26:46):
things like that, and I said, if I made a
vow to myself, I was ever in a position to
help in my wood. A couple of years afterwards, I
made a hot shot and I had a ton of money,
and I just walked in there and cut him a check.
And I kept cutting them to check for nine years,
and we built roofs, bought beds, bought machines. Every machine
they gave me an needs list, and I tried to
(27:06):
fill the neat nets. I built a park with my
band for the parents of the patrons, and a gentleman
touched me on my shoulder and says, a shag, can
you come visit my daughter. She's hooked up to one
of your machines. I'm like, all right, cool, let me
just finish with this ceremony here, and they cut the
ribbon and blah blah blah, open the park. So I
walked around and it was this little girl that was
(27:27):
hooked up to a machine that I bought, and she
was about eight years old, and she was incoherent, and
riser just rolled over in her head and she had
a bullet stuck in her head. She was eight years old,
and I felt incredibly useless, helpless. I held her hand
(27:51):
and I just got up and say I got it.
Something else. I didn't know the first thing about putting
a concert on. But I called a friend of mine,
Sharon Burke, and she put me onto a brought by
the name of William of Food who his family are
the founders of Food for the Poor, which is the
second largest international charity out of the U S and
the sixth largest charity in the United States. But they're
(28:12):
all Jamaicans, he says, shagged a minute you start helping
the poor, you will never stop, not believe. So they
taught me how to register a charity and so you
just can't give money like that. And they just kind
of guided me through it, and we put the first
concert on and since then we've done I think by
eight or nine. Congratulations, Thank you, sir. Great work. Talk
(28:35):
a little bit about the low periods, ups and downs, up.
You've got all this energy propelling you forward. When you're
the low period. How do you break through? How do
you keep it going? How do you deliver them? People
should never be scared of the low period. Those are
the best years. That's when you know who your circle is.
When success is there, everybody is is dandy, everybody is
(28:58):
around you, everybody is supportive. When the wheels fall off.
Who's going to push the cart. Who's gonna rock with
you when the rewards aren't high, Who's going to tell
you the truth? Those lower years are what built the
character of me to be a fighter to move forward,
(29:21):
because then you could not have accomplished anything else with
the same team of people who are not believers in you.
I was surrounded by a bunch of people that we're
just the wrong people for him, and it kept happening
for years because I'm also one of those guys who's
from the ghettos, and I believe in chances, and I
(29:43):
believe in loyalty, and I believe in friendship, and I
believe in all of that. At some point, you have
to get up, look in the mirror and practice one
simple word, no, no, no, no, and say it enough
(30:03):
times and you'll get used to saying it, and at
the apportune time, you will say no. Because if you
keep saying yes just to please everybody so that you're
not the bad guy, everything falls. That's part of being
a leader. What advice would you give the young shaggy
(30:27):
somewhere in Brooklyn and the Marines in Kingston looking up
to you? If you get up every morning and dream it,
go hard for it. That you will never hear me
say I am the most talented reggae artists or dance
all artists, and far from it. I hold my own
and I do my thing unique enough, and I've probably
the most accomplished. But you could have talent and work
(30:55):
ethic and no one will ever know you, and you
could have work ethic ten percent talent and be the
biggest are in the world. That's what it boils down
to get upon time. Great relationships mean what you say,
That's a big one. I don't find a lot of
that in this game of music, especially with artists. Mean
(31:18):
what you say. If I shake your hand on something
and somewhere down the line, it changes not in my favor.
I'm still going through with it because I shook your
hand on it, and I'll take the loss. That's integrity.
Where did you learn that? Were you born with that?
Or was that somebody's influence on you. I don't think
(31:39):
it's an influence on me. I think that was from
just the streets, because I have meant many people who
have done that in my life. You've just come off
this incredible success with staying Grammys tours hits, So tell
me about the new music. I kind of did a comeback.
There's a a young lady by the name of Tessentian
(32:01):
is a great singer out of Jamaica, and I asked
her she would go on the Voice, and I got
her do on the voice and she won the voice.
She was first Jamaican to do it. It was a
big deal and we did shaggying friends and I wanted
to kind of be the guy behind her and manage
and but she had other plants. But it was the
single thing that made me realize that I need to
(32:24):
bet on myself. And so I went back to me
and I wrote a little song called I Need Your Love.
I did a video and I put it out and
within a week it was a million views, and in
another week it was another million. And after a while
label to approached me, and after a while a young
lady called Marty came in the next minute, I was
(32:45):
running around doing I Heart gigs and I went to
every station and I went on every show. I didn't
care what slot they put me on, and I did
my thing. We got the song to top five radio,
but it put another energy in He says, Hey, maybe
I got something left here, and of course I had
an album to come out because now I put a
(33:05):
record aside, I do an album, and Sting came to
me and says, well, I want to do a reggae record. Now,
this guy is staying, it's an icon. You short's me.
You want to do a record with it? Yes, I
want to reggae record, and you're the guy I want
to do it with me. Shock me. Give you someone
under the boush your self esteem. Let that guy talk
to you, because this guy is like, people don't understand
his genius. When I'm sitting in an interview and he's
(33:27):
this nineteen time Grammy a hundred and fifty million records
sol blah blah blah, and sit down there and says, Hey,
you don't understand the genius of this guy. What did
you just call me? Yeah, the genius of this guy?
What you do as genius? I play instruments. You don't
play instruments, and you get these melodies and these words
and these things going. But you take that for granted
(33:48):
because there's people around you that weren't empowering you. And
here's this guy that came into my life at the
right time. To empower me and then I'm playing for
staying on if I was like, wow, this is this
is crazy because now I had a lot to let out.
It's the first time I'm doing a more personal album.
So this is an album that is the most personal
I've ever gotten. What I'm doing on this record has
(34:11):
a lot to do with what I've gone through with
people and how disappointed I've been with people. People I thought, wow,
I really didn't know you, did I thirty years, twenty years? Yeah,
that's what this record is about. Very personal. But I'm
also a great pop writer, and I now to structure
a song and now to make it catchy and stink.
(34:36):
Says to me, the reason why you haven't been here
on the level of what I've done or I had
the amount of success I have is because no one
has ever really invested in you the same way. Because,
let's face it, Monday morning, when you get in the
record company and they said, hey, let's talk about Shaggy,
(34:56):
he says, Okay, let's put five million dollars behind this
guy and blow them up. There's no track record of
ever being done before that. What executive is going to
put their ass on the line and invest that kind
of money in an act would come from Jamaica doing dance.
All how are you going to market it when there's
no format? Has it been done before? By the way,
(35:19):
it's Jamaica, it's dance, all the music of homophobia, guns, violence,
whatever statement they give to it. So I have to
maneuver my way through all of that. And he says,
my god, the guy that we said should be on
the banana boat singing, he's selling half a million records
a week. That's where it comes from. That's where that
drive comes from. Well well deserved, Thank you, sir. One
(35:43):
final thing, this is math and magic. Who's the best mathematician?
You know, you'd have to be somebody that reinvents himself
all the time. You would have to be somebody who
has stood the test of time. It would have to
be somebody who gets it and someone who still has
(36:08):
to fire. You're looking at him. I love that. Who's
the best magician? It's funny that you have this program
name math and magic and magic because I don't think
one exists without the other. And I could only speak
for myself, so I would put myself in that category too.
(36:28):
You're merlin, Thank you, Thank you. Here's a couple of
lessons I take away from Shaggy. Part of being a
leader is learning to say no when it comes to collaborations.
Shaggy believes, if it's not when, when it's a bad idea,
(36:49):
and don't be scared of the low periods. It's when
you realize who's in your corner and where the opportunities
truly are. Thanks again to Shaggy, his new solo album,
wa Iguan is out now, make sure you go check
it out. I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening. That's it
(37:21):
for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to Math
and Magic, a production of I Heart Radio. This show
is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sue Schillinger
for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no
small feat Nikkiatore for pulling research bill plaques and Michael
Asar for their recording health, our editor, Ryan Murdoch, and
of course Gayle Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango and everyone
(37:44):
who helped bring this show to your ears. Until next time,
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of I
Heart Radio. If you get up every morning and dream it,
go hard for it, that you will never hear me
say I am the most talented reggae artist or dance
all artists. Far from it. I hold my own and
I do my thing unique enough, and I've probably the
(00:21):
most accomplished. But you could have talent and work ethic.
No one will ever know you. You could have work
ethic ten percent talent and be the biggest star in
the world. That's what it boils down to. I'm Bob Pittman.
(00:45):
Welcome to Mathemagic, where we talk about that magic formula
of marketing. We talked to great magicians and great mathematicians,
and we have a fantastic magician here today, Blessings Shaggy.
You want a Grammy and was the nine first you
(01:09):
want a Grammy in two thousand nineteen. Yeah, or your
collaboration was sting and that might say at all, how
do you do something for that long and keep it going?
You know? It took the first Grammy kind of for
granted in a way I wanted for Mr Boombastic, I
was the guy that was breaking through all the barriers
with Old Carolina. It was the first number one dance
(01:31):
all record in the UK, and I came to Bombastic
and followed up. Normally, when the most diancel artists after
they get a number one, the follow up his heart,
you know. But I stepped up to the plate and
I wrote Mr. Bombastic and I delivered it and it
debuted at number one in the British Chard first day
out and it was the first time that was ever
done in reggae's history period. And our good friend Chris Blackwell,
(01:56):
there was a binning war when I had Old Carolina
in the chart set number one, because that was an
unsigned act that was number one in the British Shark.
And Susan Newman, who was a really good friend of his,
who was his right hand her and I had a
great relationship, and I really wanted to be signed on
Island because that was the home of Bob Marley and
Jim Mcliffe and all my all my heroes. But I'm
driving in a car with my then manager going to
(02:19):
sign a deal memoir. I think if I can recall properly,
and I got a call from a gentleman by the
native ken Berry that time I think. He was the
chairman of Virgin Records, and he offered me a million
pounds and that time it was unheard of in reggae
music for an artist to get that kind of money.
And so we stopped the car and I said, wow,
you know, I have a great relationship with Chris and Suzette,
but I might need to go here what this guy
(02:40):
has to say. So I turned the car and went
back to Virgin, but met with him the same day
and I said, what a big office and he says, yes,
matches my ego in my offer. And I called Chris
Blackwell at that time to see if he would match it,
and he said, too rich for me. I've never paid
that much for reggae us and I'm I'm not about
(03:01):
to now. And we debuted at number one with Mr Bombastic.
Ken Berry says, it's funny Chris would say that I
made my million back just on Old Carolina, which which
was kind of weird to me. It was like wow.
Years after, I was at Golden nine and Chris and
I were joking about it, because we're still good friends
to this day, and he said, Shaggy, was it something?
(03:23):
I said? I said, maybe it was what you didn't say.
But I took the whole Grammy thing for like granted,
and I was nominated I think seven times after that
and never got it. I was always beaten, either by
somebody who was a Marley or something or something just
always lost. So after a while I was like, Wow,
I wonder if I'm really gonna get back one. And
(03:44):
then I did this project, which I really didn't think
I was going to get a Grammy for this project
because it was kind of out of nowhere. It's kind
of weird, staying shaggy. People ask a question like what
is this and go figure here we are? You know
that Jamaican in New York, that Jamaica can in New York? Right?
You were born in Kingston, Born and rising Kingston, still live.
(04:05):
At eighteen, you moved in with your mom in Brooklyn,
joined the Marines, went to war. Yeah, and then all
this other stuff goes. We're gonna connect the dots in
a minute, but first you in sixty seconds. You don't
mind the test? Do you go ahead? Okay, Okay, here
we go. Knock it out. Cats are dogs, Cats beat
(04:25):
your mountains. Beach definitely, Beer wine or tequila. Tequila definitely tequila, Tequila,
ram still tequila. I've gotta like that. Boats or planes.
I'm a boat guy. Sunrise or Sunsets, Sunrise Brooklyn or Kingston. Kingston.
Definitely Bob Marley or James Brown. Oh that's a tough one.
(04:47):
That's a tough one because I've never met Bob Marley
and he's always been my hero. But I've met James
Brown and he was such a huge fan and a
huge inspiration to me. I'll have to tie on that one. Okay,
we'll give you a tie. What's your favorite city to
tour Africa? The whole continent of Africa. Uganda is cool,
Kenya Ghana. I just love torning out because you get
(05:07):
these massive crowds. It's like the whole country comes out.
Secret talent I could draw. Would you'd never eat? Who would?
I'd never eat? You'd never eat? And things that smell bad.
I'm not good with food. It doesn't smell nice. Most
musical person you know except you, staying childhood hero, my mother,
worst bad you participated in I think Breakdance. It was
(05:28):
kind of weird for me because I was awkward at it.
The best cool side drink coconut water. What do you
think you wanted to be when you were growing up Fireman.
As I got older, even when I was doing singing,
I always looked at you Hefner's job and say, hey,
that would be a cool job. Best performer you watched
Michael Jackson? What topic can you talk about? Forever? Love? Who? Yeah? Good?
(05:53):
End that? Okay, that's the quiz. Now let's get into
it all right. Cool. I've got a place in Jubaka.
You and I met there. I don't know how many
years ago. Many you give master tours of Kingston. That
was the beneficiary of it, except when that pit bowl
almost ate me alive when you was trying to talk
to who I was trying to talk to. So is
Jamaica where your heart is? And how do you think
(06:16):
it shapes who you are and your music? I think
it's everything. Jamaica is where the root of it is
and where the energy comes from and the drive because
I am the first at many things in dance, all
and reggae, and I'm big on people telling me I
can't do it and I have to prove them wrong.
I'm big on that. It's like a fire lid onto
(06:37):
me when they try to tell me that I can.
Do you think Jamaica gives you that backbone? Yes? Yes,
imagine doing a dance all record and trying to get
it played on popular radio. To this day, there's still
not a reggae formula or a format for reggae music.
There's a format of hip hop, there's a format of
(06:57):
R and B, rock pop, whatever it is. There is
no format for reggae. But yet still this art farm
has now become somewhat of the sound of popular music now,
from the Rihannas to the Justin Bieber's do whatever it is,
go back to staying in the Police, and you can
sting in the Police. When they started, The Police were
(07:18):
the first white reggae band and they were part of
the gate opening because reggae bands at the time could
not be played on major radio stations. Unfortunate because most
of them because they were black, you know, and these
guys were some white guys were playing a hybrid version
of it that got on mainstream radio. And so now
the real reggae guys like the Steel Poles and the
(07:39):
Asods and these guys could basically come in and say, hey,
what are you talking about. You're playing those guys, what
do you think they're playing, you know, and Sting was
gracious enough to always support them pay homage to them,
and this is kind of what we did with this
project going back. So let's talk a little bit about
we're on the subject of Jamaica longevity. I mean, the
very few people in the music business have the kind
(08:00):
of longevity, staying power, eternal appeal you do. Where do
you think that comes from? Is that related to Jamaica
if you go back there for nourishment and come back
into the world. You know, Bob, When I came out
with Carolina, it was a cover of the Folk Brothers
Oh Carolina, and I covered it, but I also put
my twist to it. It was such a massive number
(08:22):
one around the world that they labeled me a want
in Wonder and it was the big headlines in almost
every British tabloid. Kind of why I think probably Chris
didn't come to the table, but we ended up lasting
this long and I think I am the guy that
no one ever saw coming at all, and I'm still
(08:46):
today the guy that no one sees coming. So Jamaica
does have a lot to do with that, because I
somehow I have a love hate relationship with being beyond
the dog. I kind of like to be beyond the
dog because when you win, it feels better. I kind
of hate being beyond the dog because the journey is harder.
But my grandmother always says, nothing good in life is easy.
(09:09):
You and I both know a lot of people who
started out very humble, nice, and they unleashed a monster
when they became stars. It seems like the bigger you are,
the harder you work. You're one of those guys. It's
working as if this is your first record and your
first time out every time, and what in your background
gave you that. I came from nothing. I consider myself
the luckiest human being unearthed. Nothing I take for granted. Nothing.
(09:35):
Every single time I get up, I feel like, Wow,
I survived the war. I come from a from Raytown
in Jamaica. There's no one in my family that has
ever gone to college. I'm putting somebody in college, a
few in college now. I was the first to be married,
I was the first to kind of engage in family.
I was a dreamer, very very fortunate, and I don't
(09:56):
take anything for granted. So Shaggy, how did you get
the name Shaggy? And at what age. It's probably probably
around thirteen fourteen. I was a skinny guy, totally skinny
guy with a lot of hair, and my hair was
really really light, so they said I looked like Shaggy
from Scooby Doo and they called me Shaggy. I hated
(10:19):
the name Shaggy dog. Say dog, Shaggy dog. Yes, it
was a tease. I left Jamaica, came to America and
everybody staw calling me Richard. I was like, oh God,
that's great, and then I'm run into some Jamaican on
Flatbush was like yo, Shoggy Yoo was like, who's that?
Do I know you? Yeah? Then all my friends around me,
oh shocking, and then it just clicked to them. But
I went to England after all. Carolina. I was in
(10:42):
a car being picked up at the airport from the
record company guy and Old Carolina came on on the
radio and Radio one and the DJ was like, oh,
I can't believe I'm playing a record from a blog,
bad Damn and Shaggy. It was making a big deal
out and I said, why what what? What's the big deal?
He says, so you don't know what shag made? Like
now do you explained to the man like Ah, all
(11:05):
of a sudden, my name was the coolest name I
have had. So that's why I tell the chicks these days, Hey,
how did you get your name? Shag You never had
a van? Did you like Shaggy? No? No, no. I
toured in the van in Europe, though it wasn't the
mystery machine. There as much mystery going on there. Let's
(11:26):
take it a step back. Why did you join the Marines?
I was in Flatbush at the time, and it was
flat Bush and the real Flatbush since not Ginger five
Flatbush as it is now heavy West Indian area. At
that time, I went to Rasmus Hall. It was an
academy of the arts at the time, so I I
excelled in the arts, acting music. I was good at
art and design. It was good at but I believe
(11:48):
with my mother at the time and all my friends
were just doing everything that was wrong. I was in
Clark's the Nostro and I was selling weed, coke, everything
that was bad, hanging with everybody. It was bad. But
I'm also smart and off bobt in order. If somebody's
walking and they step in the hole and break their leg,
common sense, if I'm walking behind them step over it.
So it didn't take long for a couple of my
friends to be getting locked up, and I decided, hey,
(12:10):
you know this ain't me remembers the Twosa. I think.
I walked down to Flatbush Junction. I walked in a
recruiting office and I stepped in and there was some posters.
One was the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, and
the Marines. And I stepped over to the marinea in
the form. I was like, that looked like something I
could get laden because at that time, at that age,
(12:33):
it's all it was all about women. And I asked
the guy, said I want to get into this, and
he was like, uh, you know, asking my age. And
he says, you know, I have to take a test.
And I took the test. He's like, well, I could
get you out of here next month, and I was like, no,
I need to get out of here by Friday. And
I told her the recruit I said, if I'm not
doing it by Friday, I'm not doing it at all.
(12:54):
And he says, hold up, and he went to this
other guy, and I guess they kind of swapped, and
you know, I ended up leaving being like the following
week Friday or something like that, and I went into
the military. And at that time, when I stepped on
the yellow foot prints and the guys screaming in my face,
I was like, what have I got myself into? But
I really just did it just to get off the streets.
What did you learn from the military? That was my
(13:16):
biggest teaching, I should say that experience. I started out
in a platoon of thinking about maybe a hundred hundred
twenty or something like that, or a hundred, I can't remember.
We graduated it about thirty or forty amount of people
that dropped out, and I think it was like thirteen
weeks in basic training and these guys were screaming in
(13:39):
your face. I almost didn't make it funny enough because
I couldn't swim from Jamaica. And it was a running
joke with I can't now, but it was a running
joke from all the drill instructors. Jamaica, boy, you can't swim,
are you vir? Jamaica gas whim and you're on it
(14:00):
up on smoke head, you know. And they kept having
me hacking him all the time. Now, drive to New
York City every single weekend, which is considered a wall
just to do music. So I drove nine hours to
nine hours from just to make records, and the eighteen
hours every weekend, and I would sometime come back late
and I would get a wall. There was a colonel,
(14:21):
Colonel Evans was the Jamaican Attashi. He was my CEO,
and he always tried to locale for me. Once he left,
there was another colonel in charge, and I got bit
and I would do it every weekend. Actually, I voiced
O Carolina I in a studio in my full uniform. Wow,
still weird uniform because I wouldn't get stop on the highway. Really,
(14:43):
I didn't know that. So yeah, whenever the state trooper
pulls you over if you're in your uniform. There ex
military tours like okay, guys, slow down. You know you
actually got chipped out to the first Gulf four right,
and how did that affect you? I mean, did you
actually see battle? Were you in the middle of it? Yes?
You know what people do twenty years in the military.
I never see you are I do four and I'm
(15:03):
caught up in the desert storm. It was a learning
experience for me too, because it made me appreciate a
lot of things. It's funny what you appreciate the simple
things in life. Friendship, your mother's cooking a warm bed
when you're in the middle of a fighting field with
none of that. And it did a lot for me.
For race. There was a gentleman I was guarding a
(15:26):
fifty cow with in Saudi Arabia and he was a
white guy, and he was explained to me that then
he came to the military, is the first time he
saw a black man or met one. And he had
explained to me his lifestyle and his parents. And so
I would say racism is taught, because here's the guy
that I'm having a conversation with him and I became friends.
(15:48):
And now it's him watching my back, I'm watching his
back and we're guarding a fifty cow. And so how
did you get Marines the musician? I did it because well,
you know, I was in Rasmus Hall and there were
little clicks in the lunch room in Brooklyn. So you
had the Haitian click, the Trinity click, the Jamaican click,
(16:10):
you know, and in the Jamaican click, I was the
guy that could spit rhymes and it would beat the
bench I missed. I said you know, they would be
lives out seeing that the lunch thing, and I mean
just I would say all these rhymes and I was
really really good at it. I look at your shirt,
your pants, your shoes, whatever it is. And when I
realized when I did that, I got attention. And I
(16:33):
realized when I did that, I got chicks, lots of girls,
and they were all, you know, they always wanted me
to talk about their hair and issue and all that.
And as that went along, somebody heard me, a guy
called Kingsley, and I said, I'm going to take you
over to a place, and they brought me to a
place called Gibraltar sound System and I ended up spitting
some some lyrics tonight with a couple of guys, you know,
just battling and trading rhymes. And they took me to
(16:56):
a studio called Don Juan Studio in Brooklyn and I
cut a record, and then it introduced me to another
guy called Sting in National. I cut another record, and
after that I was doing a circuit. I started making
a reputation for myself and one of those songs became
a hit, and then another one and another one. Then
after a while I had these ghetto fabulous songs, these
(17:17):
underground songs, and now I was getting to every club
for free. I drank for free, and I left with
the prettiest Jake. I'm like, I'm on cloud nine, you know.
I lived in Bedforst Divers and at this time little
apartment Dearren Madison between Lewis and Marcus Garvey. I had
a great time, not a wars in the world. And
one of those songs I wrote while I was in
the military too, was Oth Carolina. It was a license
(17:41):
to Green Sleeve in England and they had major distribution
through BMG, and it just took off like like crazy.
And at that time I was doing background from Maxi Priest.
So the universe just kind of somehow put me with
Maxie and I went out with Maxie for five hundred
bucks a week, touring with him, and he taught me
how to do interviews and taught me how to speak properly,
(18:03):
and taught me what how to perform mentor Yes, it's
kind of a mentor. And there were good things he
did and bad things he did. Some of the bad
things I looked at it was like okay, you know,
but it was a big learning process for me. So
this is math and Magic. It's really a podcast for marketers.
Shaggy is a big brand. Do you consciously think about
(18:24):
managing that brand? What's shaggy and what's not shaggy? And
what you can do and can't do? Yes? And how
do you think about brand Shaggy. I am a direct
representative of brand Jamaica. I look at it like that,
everything about Brand Jamaica comes with a cool factor. I
was offered to do I think was dancing with a star,
(18:46):
one of them things some management I had was bringing
to me and I refused, and you know, they were like,
what are you doing? And you're you're being difficult and
I'm like, nah, can you imagine me shaggy, iconic guy
out of Jamaica dancing around entire No, it's not gonna happen, bro,
you know what I mean. But I find now what
brand Shaggy is. There's a lot of people that don't
(19:08):
know a lot about me and what I am. You know,
Mr Bombastic, you know, love me, love me know Angel.
Some of these songs are very cheeky and some of
them somewhat novelty, and they think that's the basis of
what you are. You know it wasn't me, but there
was also ten million people or so that bought Hot
Shot and realized there was a lot of depth within
(19:30):
that album. I'm a guy that's I'm ginna pig at it.
You know, I'm not the guy to choose characters who
are good for me. Bad management people would not much vision,
people would low self esteem people. It's just part of
my journey. I'm not mad at any of it because
I learned from every single one of it and has
made me a stronger person today. And I actually do
(19:50):
think my best years are ahead of me. And You've
got a brand that has worked for a number of generations.
And there's probably the people in the mid nineties I
thought of you was one thing. People today probably think
of you as something else or know you for something else.
How do you tie all that together? Well, it is
crazy in the sense because I used to be at
(20:10):
Rocket Studio up here and I Puffy at the time
was he was at Uptown Records and he was an intern.
So I'm in the time with Joe to see heavity.
He was a really good friend. He was Jamaican, so
I'm from that era. So I saw when jay Z
got here. You remember being on the road when Beyonce
and Destiny's Child we were doing radio together, you know.
(20:32):
I remember when in Sync was opening for Shaggy, you know,
and Spice Girl was opening for Shaggy. And in Europe
when we had Mr. Bombastic was the biggest thing and
they were just coming up. I remember all of that.
The other day, I was having a conversation. We're talking
about Joe to See and I I was like, yeah, mat
Jody was. And then the kid that was with me,
I guess he's probably around one, like, who's Joe to See?
(20:53):
And I imagine looks at me and says, do you
realize what this is? He doesn't know who Joe to
See is, but knows who Shaggy is. Isn't that crazy?
And to have lasted this long and I'm having the
biggest year in reggae for me, just winning a Grammy,
best Selling Reggae Album, best Selling Tour, Wanted the best
Selling Tour, Number four, most successful tour for the year.
(21:17):
At fifty, You're just a baby, you know, Bob. That's
why I like talking to you. Always have older friends.
It's it worked like a charge. Just hold on a second,
because we've got so much more to talk about. We'll
be back after a quick break. Welcome back to math
and magic. We're here with Shaggy. You've traveled a whole
(21:42):
lot and talking about that too. How do you balance
that with the family and what influence does that have
on you? My partner is the whole, the down person
and the person that mops up, and how the fires
and do all of that. You really got to give
credit where that is doing. Mad That's a lot because
I am the guy to has always gone. But to
manage that family situation, you really have to give and take.
(22:04):
I would say, when this is over with and I
go home, your feelings get hit sometimes because things goes
on without you and it is tough and you get
into arguments and you get into fights and you kind
of have the weather through it. But I like at
the end of the day when I look at it
and I'm like, Wow, this is what I've done. This
is great, beautiful home, beautiful life, beautiful life. This is great.
(22:27):
Quite an arc. Yeah, what's your process for making the music?
I mean, how does it start, Where does this idea
come from? And how does it turn into something? I
don't like to follow the trend of things. If you
look at the history of my songs, we know Carolina
came out, there's nothing in radio that sounded like it.
When Mr Bombast came out, you were like, what the
(22:49):
what is this? But it was good. When I came
with it wasn't me. We were in in sync and
Britney spirits mode. Radio is like what is this? So
I've always maintained that because that's what excites me, is
coming with that lift feel, thing that is disruptive, an
ear grabber, like what is this? And it's a balance,
(23:11):
an act because you can't be too left field to
where radio is like, oh my, well, how does this work?
It has to be a balance, and it's finding that
right balance that works. And it's a gut instinct of
me feeling like, oh yeah, this is great. Do you
think about it to get there or does it just
pop in your head? Sometimes I think about it. I
give you a quick example. I was doing pop music
(23:34):
and I was doing very well at it, but I
wasn't getting in respect in Jamaica for dance all. And
I started a dance all. So it starts to bother
me and I wanted to come back and get a
dance all hit and it had to be a big one,
and I thought about it. I thought about it, and
I took every record that's doing well and I listened
to them. Elephant Man was doing this ponder river dance stuff,
(23:56):
and then there was Aunt Kilho was doing the hardcore
gun and stuff. And I was like, how do I
it in. I'm not the dancing guy that's not Shaggy,
I'm not the gun talking guy that's not me either.
I went to a party in Brooklyn with a friend
and a young lady was with me, and she brought
a bag with a dress. So we did the party
and she went into the bathroom and she changed into
(24:18):
another dress. This was daylight coming up now, and she says,
can you dropped me to church? We just covered from
a dance, hardcore reggae dance in Brooklyn. We drove into
the church. I dropped her off. I couldn't get out
of my head. She just flipped from being this girl
that was cocking up in about the right, you know,
(24:39):
doing all the nastiest dances. And she put a dress
on and I had and she was at church. It
was that simple. And then the idea came to me
for a song called Church Eden. I wanted it to
sound different that I I wanted to hear church bells, I
wanted to hear church choirs, but I wanted the conversation
to be about the hypocrisy of church, but in a
(25:00):
comedic way. And I wrote it and we put it
out and it was nineteen weeks at number one in
the dance hall and I was back with the whole
dance hall crew. Now didn't buy into me as a
dance all artists, as you know, but it opened the
door to all my other stuff, you know. And it
was so massive, So it's always calculated. When I was
(25:22):
doing this record with Sting, Martin was like, should we
go to Jamaica and do the record? And I was like, well,
why don't you use my team in New York. We
did it in New York. I was like, yeah, but
we need the authenticity of Jamaica and everything. I said,
we have another way come to Shaggy and Friends. It's
a win win. It's the most publicized you know about it,
(25:43):
and we did it. It It was a massive concert on
the laws of the Prime Minister's resident twenty thou people
and we made a million US for the hospital. We
gave it in and we did a great video in
the streets of Kingston and everybody loved them, and everybody
loved the project. And here we are, let's talk about
your charity. I went down you gave me the tour
(26:03):
of the children's hospitals. Pretty remarkable, and you have taken
that as your pet project. Give us a little bit
of insight into why, how, and and where you are today.
A friend of mine, Tony Kelly, who I'm doing my
new album but now, he had a son but a
name of Shane, and his son was sick and I
went to the hospital to night to visit this kid.
And while I was waiting there, I had the opportunity
(26:25):
to talk to the nurses and doctors and they were
telling me all the remarkable things that they were doing,
you know, like, for instance, to prep for a surgery,
to warm the blood the blood is frozen, they put
it in a pot with some water with a temperature
gaijer and you know, warm it up until it was
the right thing, because they didn't have a machine called
the blow to warmer. And I realized they were doing
(26:46):
things like that, and I said, if I made a
vow to myself, I was ever in a position to
help in my wood. A couple of years afterwards, I
made a hot shot and I had a ton of money,
and I just walked in there and cut him a check.
And I kept cutting them to check for nine years,
and we built roofs, bought beds, bought machines. Every machine
they gave me an needs list, and I tried to
(27:06):
fill the neat nets. I built a park with my
band for the parents of the patrons, and a gentleman
touched me on my shoulder and says, a shag, can
you come visit my daughter. She's hooked up to one
of your machines. I'm like, all right, cool, let me
just finish with this ceremony here, and they cut the
ribbon and blah blah blah, open the park. So I
walked around and it was this little girl that was
(27:27):
hooked up to a machine that I bought, and she
was about eight years old, and she was incoherent, and
riser just rolled over in her head and she had
a bullet stuck in her head. She was eight years old,
and I felt incredibly useless, helpless. I held her hand
(27:51):
and I just got up and say I got it.
Something else. I didn't know the first thing about putting
a concert on. But I called a friend of mine,
Sharon Burke, and she put me onto a brought by
the name of William of Food who his family are
the founders of Food for the Poor, which is the
second largest international charity out of the U S and
the sixth largest charity in the United States. But they're
(28:12):
all Jamaicans, he says, shagged a minute you start helping
the poor, you will never stop, not believe. So they
taught me how to register a charity and so you
just can't give money like that. And they just kind
of guided me through it, and we put the first
concert on and since then we've done I think by
eight or nine. Congratulations, Thank you, sir. Great work. Talk
(28:35):
a little bit about the low periods, ups and downs, up.
You've got all this energy propelling you forward. When you're
the low period. How do you break through? How do
you keep it going? How do you deliver them? People
should never be scared of the low period. Those are
the best years. That's when you know who your circle is.
When success is there, everybody is is dandy, everybody is
(28:58):
around you, everybody is supportive. When the wheels fall off.
Who's going to push the cart. Who's gonna rock with
you when the rewards aren't high, Who's going to tell
you the truth? Those lower years are what built the
character of me to be a fighter to move forward,
(29:21):
because then you could not have accomplished anything else with
the same team of people who are not believers in you.
I was surrounded by a bunch of people that we're
just the wrong people for him, and it kept happening
for years because I'm also one of those guys who's
from the ghettos, and I believe in chances, and I
(29:43):
believe in loyalty, and I believe in friendship, and I
believe in all of that. At some point, you have
to get up, look in the mirror and practice one
simple word, no, no, no, no, and say it enough
(30:03):
times and you'll get used to saying it, and at
the apportune time, you will say no. Because if you
keep saying yes just to please everybody so that you're
not the bad guy, everything falls. That's part of being
a leader. What advice would you give the young shaggy
(30:27):
somewhere in Brooklyn and the Marines in Kingston looking up
to you? If you get up every morning and dream it,
go hard for it. That you will never hear me
say I am the most talented reggae artists or dance
all artists, and far from it. I hold my own
and I do my thing unique enough, and I've probably
the most accomplished. But you could have talent and work
(30:55):
ethic and no one will ever know you, and you
could have work ethic ten percent talent and be the
biggest are in the world. That's what it boils down
to get upon time. Great relationships mean what you say,
That's a big one. I don't find a lot of
that in this game of music, especially with artists. Mean
(31:18):
what you say. If I shake your hand on something
and somewhere down the line, it changes not in my favor.
I'm still going through with it because I shook your
hand on it, and I'll take the loss. That's integrity.
Where did you learn that? Were you born with that?
Or was that somebody's influence on you. I don't think
(31:39):
it's an influence on me. I think that was from
just the streets, because I have meant many people who
have done that in my life. You've just come off
this incredible success with staying Grammys tours hits, So tell
me about the new music. I kind of did a comeback.
There's a a young lady by the name of Tessentian
(32:01):
is a great singer out of Jamaica, and I asked
her she would go on the Voice, and I got
her do on the voice and she won the voice.
She was first Jamaican to do it. It was a
big deal and we did shaggying friends and I wanted
to kind of be the guy behind her and manage
and but she had other plants. But it was the
single thing that made me realize that I need to
(32:24):
bet on myself. And so I went back to me
and I wrote a little song called I Need Your Love.
I did a video and I put it out and
within a week it was a million views, and in
another week it was another million. And after a while
label to approached me, and after a while a young
lady called Marty came in the next minute, I was
(32:45):
running around doing I Heart gigs and I went to
every station and I went on every show. I didn't
care what slot they put me on, and I did
my thing. We got the song to top five radio,
but it put another energy in He says, Hey, maybe
I got something left here, and of course I had
an album to come out because now I put a
(33:05):
record aside, I do an album, and Sting came to
me and says, well, I want to do a reggae record. Now,
this guy is staying, it's an icon. You short's me.
You want to do a record with it? Yes, I
want to reggae record, and you're the guy I want
to do it with me. Shock me. Give you someone
under the boush your self esteem. Let that guy talk
to you, because this guy is like, people don't understand
his genius. When I'm sitting in an interview and he's
(33:27):
this nineteen time Grammy a hundred and fifty million records
sol blah blah blah, and sit down there and says, Hey,
you don't understand the genius of this guy. What did
you just call me? Yeah, the genius of this guy?
What you do as genius? I play instruments. You don't
play instruments, and you get these melodies and these words
and these things going. But you take that for granted
(33:48):
because there's people around you that weren't empowering you. And
here's this guy that came into my life at the
right time. To empower me and then I'm playing for
staying on if I was like, wow, this is this
is crazy because now I had a lot to let out.
It's the first time I'm doing a more personal album.
So this is an album that is the most personal
I've ever gotten. What I'm doing on this record has
(34:11):
a lot to do with what I've gone through with
people and how disappointed I've been with people. People I thought, wow,
I really didn't know you, did I thirty years, twenty years? Yeah,
that's what this record is about. Very personal. But I'm
also a great pop writer, and I now to structure
a song and now to make it catchy and stink.
(34:36):
Says to me, the reason why you haven't been here
on the level of what I've done or I had
the amount of success I have is because no one
has ever really invested in you the same way. Because,
let's face it, Monday morning, when you get in the
record company and they said, hey, let's talk about Shaggy,
(34:56):
he says, Okay, let's put five million dollars behind this
guy and blow them up. There's no track record of
ever being done before that. What executive is going to
put their ass on the line and invest that kind
of money in an act would come from Jamaica doing dance.
All how are you going to market it when there's
no format? Has it been done before? By the way,
(35:19):
it's Jamaica, it's dance, all the music of homophobia, guns, violence,
whatever statement they give to it. So I have to
maneuver my way through all of that. And he says,
my god, the guy that we said should be on
the banana boat singing, he's selling half a million records
a week. That's where it comes from. That's where that
drive comes from. Well well deserved, Thank you, sir. One
(35:43):
final thing, this is math and magic. Who's the best mathematician?
You know, you'd have to be somebody that reinvents himself
all the time. You would have to be somebody who
has stood the test of time. It would have to
be somebody who gets it and someone who still has
(36:08):
to fire. You're looking at him. I love that. Who's
the best magician? It's funny that you have this program
name math and magic and magic because I don't think
one exists without the other. And I could only speak
for myself, so I would put myself in that category too.
(36:28):
You're merlin, Thank you, Thank you. Here's a couple of
lessons I take away from Shaggy. Part of being a
leader is learning to say no when it comes to collaborations.
Shaggy believes, if it's not when, when it's a bad idea,
(36:49):
and don't be scared of the low periods. It's when
you realize who's in your corner and where the opportunities
truly are. Thanks again to Shaggy, his new solo album,
wa Iguan is out now, make sure you go check
it out. I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening. That's it
(37:21):
for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to Math
and Magic, a production of I Heart Radio. This show
is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sue Schillinger
for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no
small feat Nikkiatore for pulling research bill plaques and Michael
Asar for their recording health, our editor, Ryan Murdoch, and
of course Gayle Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango and everyone
(37:44):
who helped bring this show to your ears. Until next time,
Host
Bob Pittman
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