Shaggy

I'm Shaggy. I'm a business.

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 have a festival called Shaggy and Friends, which is a charity event to raise funds for a hospital.

I just do what sounds good to me, and people seem to like it.

I've been criticized for doing so - crossover music. But I never claimed to be a pure dancehall artist.

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.

I prefer working with artists who are prepared to get down in the dungeons and get the job done.

I fought for this country.

The mainstream is very fickle. If you're hot, they'll mess with you. If you're not, it's out of there.

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'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.

My career has taken so many directions.

If you listen to all my earlier stuff, it wasn't 'authentic reggae,' so to speak.

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.

After I made 'Oh Carolina' in the 1990s, the record company wanted me to copy that sound, and I refused.

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 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.

I'm not big on collaborations with 'superstars.' It generally doesn't work for me.

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 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.

You might be like, 'I want really big hits.' But when you get really big hits, and your label is making $150 million, they are people who are now interested in what you do. They are going to begin to tell you what to do, and so you become important. So your creative freedom - you're not going to have that again.

I got the name in primary school because my hair was shaggy. And I didn't like it; I thought it was derogatory.

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.

Even my mom is calling me Shaggy now, which is weird, because Shaggy is more like a character that I play. Shaggy is flamboyant; he's cocky. And I can't live that twenty-four hours a day - hell, no.

I'm no stranger to making timeless music.

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.

My thing is to get people out of the stigma of what a reggae artist should be like.

I got to prove myself all the time. And that's good. It makes you stronger.

'Shaggy' is a brand.

I want to build a fanbase. I want people to like my albums even more so than singles.

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.

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.

My existence wouldn't be the same if there weren't women.

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.

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.

I like that raw energy that I get from an audience.

I cleaned many a toilet.

If you look at my track record, there was nothing on radio that sounded like 'Oh Carolina,' 'Mr Bombastic' when they came out.

The Irish want to smile, and they want to have fun.

'Fields of Gold' is my favourite record.

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.

I fought for the U.S. government. I live in New York. I pay taxes in America.

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.

Gays and lesbians should have the same rights as anybody else, and when they're in Jamaica, they do have the same rights.

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 having big hooks and big records and sing-a-longs.

I always had these big records with people who were relatively unknown.

I like things that catch your ears.

When I look at my catalog, most of my songs are about love or relationships. And I'm smart enough to say if it's not broken, don't fix it.

I live in Kingston. When I tell people I live in Kingston, they start fearing for my life. People ask me if I have Internet in Jamaica. Like, seriously?