Shaggy

India is a great place.

I came to the Unites States and realised I had a knack for coming up with rhymes and lyrics.

Music really evolves as it goes along. It's an evolution.

A lot of people do records, and they get hit records, but we were blessed with a lot of monsters. 'Oh Carolina' was a very monstrous record in 1993; so was 'Boombastic,' 'Angel' and 'It Wasn't Me.'

I'm inspired by day to day life, things that people go through, things that make people tick. Everybody has a story, so you try to put stories into songs and try to make it as entertaining as possible.

Music, music, music. It doesn't get much better than that! It pretty much consumes my life.

I used to do three or four songs a day, just write them - boom, boom, boom, and done - because of how spontaneous I was.

When you see a Jamaica video, it's always the hood. Everybody in the video's got guns, and the world looks at it like that's what Jamaica's about. And it affects the economics of the music.

I constantly tour every year, around the clock. That's how I make my living, and I do very well. Because I have classic songs.

When I look back at the people who shaped me, that made a difference in my life, most of them were women.

The reggae fraternity is a small fraternity.

I'm still amazed at how the universe works.

My children are a joy to be around.

I have mixed feelings about Napster. I like what it can do for an unsigned band. It can help them sell 10,000 records. But for an established artist, there's already so much piracy around. They need to regulate it.

Reggae is a culture. It's easy, laid-back.

I get called everything from 'Mr Boombastic' to 'Mr Lover Lover' to 'Mr It Wasn't Me.' It's whatever is hot at that point.

I am not from a musical family.

When magic happens, it just happens, brother.

The best thing about my house is that I live five minutes from the airport, and since I fly more than I drive, it saves me a lot of time.

I really didn't think I was going to make records to where I make a living out of it.

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.

You don't create legends out of other legends.

A lot of true Jamaican artists don't understand the importance of radio so tend not to tap into that as a result.

I would never be about waking up early and do morning radio and TV back to back had I not been in the military, where they are throwing a garbage can in the middle of my squad bed at 5 o'clock in the morning for four years straight.

The biggest thing I take away from the Army is that work ethic and being able to focus and put your eyes on a goal.

I just think, as a people in general, we should always look at ourselves as the underdog, so we should always go harder than the next person.

The greatest thing about me is I have always been able to reinvent. We have done that about three or four times with my sound.

'Shaggy' was a nickname before it was ever a stage name. I have no problem with it.

The thing about Shaggy's records are those records are very timeless.

I'm used to people not getting it. I'll make amazing music, but it's convincing people that it's amazing - that's the problem.

When I was doing 'Hot Shot,' I didn't even have an album deal.

I'm one of those artists that nobody ever sees coming. We started with Virgin in 1993. If you look at the climate of that time in reggae and you were to pick the top five people that'd have a shot at having mainstream success, I was nowhere in that equation at all.

I didn't just sit down and write 'Summer In Kingston' from scratch; it came about from a bunch of songs I already had.

If I'm not on tour, then I'm sometimes laying down four or five records at a time.

You've always got to try and reinvent yourself.

I live vicariously through my songs.

Some people get a little shy, you know, and it can take a certain mood or a situation or a vibe for you to relax and come out of your shell.

Women love to talk, so you gotta be the guy that listens - not just listens but is interested.

I don't make as many records as other people do because I prefer the live side of it - and my records are so big that they keep me touring for years upon years and years.

I think the reason I got into the music business was basically for the live aspect of it.

'Lucky Day' is what I would call the Shaggy roller-coaster ride. It takes you to different moods. I listen to music in moods.

We're fortunate to have had success, not just in America but worldwide.

I'm not the guy to get big record company budgets. My budget is Britney Spears' catering money.

Making records is not brain surgery.

I'm from a single-parent family. My mom is like my mom and dad. She's my world.