Speaker 1: What's Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of What's Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: Course Love Team Supreme is with man. Yeah, hello, hey man,
Speaker 1: I'm doing I'm excited, I'm good to excited. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think I think we're allowed to say excited as the
Speaker 1: person who is on every zoom pitch. I think everyone's excited.
Speaker 1: It is the equivalent of Saint McBeth in the theater.
Speaker 1: Not be on a zoom and say everyone's excited. It's
Speaker 1: like that's the death knel. Not to apply it to
Speaker 1: every zoom. This is this is specifically exciting, right, this
Speaker 1: is not a business meeting. So yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: uh Sugar, Steve whatever him mayor Hi Team Supreme, Hi Saggy,
Speaker 1: how's every been doing? Yeah? Just give it away? Now,
Speaker 1: give it away now, Steve, Let's edit that. Let's edit that.
Speaker 1: Hey Steve, how you doing? Bro? Hey Shaggy FONTI a
Speaker 1: little man. How's it going down there? Bro? Might man
Speaker 1: finishing up my dinner? I want to be eating on camera,
Speaker 1: you know, just let it go to a black screen.
Speaker 1: I think Fonte should be like the neighbor on uh,
Speaker 1: where we just see. I think the fact that we
Speaker 1: were talking off camera before you got in kind of
Speaker 1: got into the we never come about to talk before
Speaker 1: he gets on camera. What are you talking about? No,
Speaker 1: we didn't no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it
Speaker 1: wasn't me. We weren't talking about anything other than the
Speaker 1: fact that I was complimented where she lives. Um, you
Speaker 1: like her background? No, no, no. He was shading the stake.
Speaker 1: It's cool, we we get you. You're breaking the rude
Speaker 1: to introduce Okay, funk it all right, Shaggy's on the show.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're part of telling you. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: in the inglewood. But he wasn't really taking making fun
Speaker 1: of that. He's making fun of the fact that I
Speaker 1: live in California, which is has you know, has has
Speaker 1: some ship with it, but he has a home in Florida.
Speaker 1: So I told him he needs to step back. You're
Speaker 1: not You're not a California person at all. No, it's
Speaker 1: not that I'm not a California I'm just looking at it.
Speaker 1: I said, there's only one box ticked. It's great weather.
Speaker 1: You get up and you feel amazing, but if you
Speaker 1: sit down and take the rest of boxes and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's mud slides, fires like the act, there's
Speaker 1: Karen Bass, there's gabbing. I'm like, don't even you know,
Speaker 1: there's so there's so listing. But you know, we we
Speaker 1: we we agreed to disagree. Yes, very true, very all right.
Speaker 1: So technically speaking, I should do a proper introduction, so
Speaker 1: I will say that I've we probably had a conversation
Speaker 1: with every musician every walk of life, but I don't
Speaker 1: think I've ever had an in depth conversation with anyone
Speaker 1: um in the in the dance hall reggae world. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you discount super Cats complaining that I wasn't good
Speaker 1: on drums at the roots jamp, don't feel better, don't
Speaker 1: feel bad. It complains about a lot of people, don't.
Speaker 1: He cussed me out totally? Yeah. Yeah, someone told me
Speaker 1: that it's actually a badge of honor if he if
Speaker 1: he cuss it is, it is. It is. It is.
Speaker 1: And I'm not cutting. But I'll tell you what. Super
Speaker 1: Cat was one of the first person to give me
Speaker 1: microphone when I was in Brooklyn back and Flatbush, back
Speaker 1: in the days when I was a young guy, and
Speaker 1: he would bring the microphone and give it to me.
Speaker 1: Because everybody was fighting, you know, to spit on spit
Speaker 1: on the mic, and he always, um, you gave me
Speaker 1: so he could say anything about me. I'll take you
Speaker 1: back because he was that guy. It's funny you say
Speaker 1: that I really wanted to do this episode because I mean,
Speaker 1: I've said it a few times before. But our guest today,
Speaker 1: save the Roots. Yeah, I will say that if it
Speaker 1: weren't for our guest today, none of this. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying none of this would be possible, but I know
Speaker 1: for a fact, very directly that the fruits and the
Speaker 1: overflow with uh monetary nature of our guests and his
Speaker 1: art form definitely came as an eleventh hour saving grace
Speaker 1: slash life wrath. If you will uh for my band,
Speaker 1: which you know, I will say to the end of
Speaker 1: the time that Shaggy is all right with me. He's
Speaker 1: done so many legendary things. I mean, he's so over
Speaker 1: forty million units, has over eight hundred million streams. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's collaborated with the best. I mean name it, from
Speaker 1: Shaka Khan to Eve to Janet Jackson, Cardi b Maxy Priests,
Speaker 1: Barrington Levy two to the May to Howls. Dude even
Speaker 1: I mean, right now, the gold standards to get billions
Speaker 1: of streams on TikTok. He's done that as well, like
Speaker 1: you know, and right now we're here to celebrate his
Speaker 1: new project. First of all, I mean you and Sting together.
Speaker 1: That's uh, all right, we already gave it away at
Speaker 1: the top of the show. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Shaggy. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: very much. Question you know what, you know what I
Speaker 1: gotta you put a lot of a lot of weight
Speaker 1: on my shoulder their quest because it's not the first
Speaker 1: time I've heard you said that, and um, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: meaning to see you and talk to you about that.
Speaker 1: You're putting a lot of that's a lot of weight
Speaker 1: on my show, Minty. Basically, you know, I think with
Speaker 1: the way that a successful record label can operate, I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: everybody wants you know, a vast a vast array of
Speaker 1: artists on their label and whatnot, but you know, the
Speaker 1: label also needs like and earner. And you know it
Speaker 1: wasn't me was so inescapable in that. Basically we were
Speaker 1: kind of wondering where like we we spend a lot
Speaker 1: of money on things for all apart and you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of like if you ever seen, uh,
Speaker 1: what's the Adam Sandler's movie that I thought he should
Speaker 1: have got nominated for Oscar? For oh, uncut Gims. The
Speaker 1: industry is a lot like uncut Gims, where you gotta
Speaker 1: rob Peter to pay Paul. So oftentimes, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: read about my favorite records getting made and they'll say like, well,
Speaker 1: we have to take some money from the Doobie Brothers
Speaker 1: project to pay for this project. In our case, I
Speaker 1: will say that a good portion of the promotion that
Speaker 1: we have to do for things for all apart the
Speaker 1: videos we had to do, the promotions, the ads we
Speaker 1: have to take out, all those things definitely are and
Speaker 1: R said, you guys better be lucky for a shaggy
Speaker 1: success because this is how we're paying for your budget.
Speaker 1: So you know, you know what it is to quest
Speaker 1: it was it was a very strange climate. That whole
Speaker 1: company was a strange climate, you know. It was you
Speaker 1: really didn't have an urban department. We didn't in that company.
Speaker 1: A lot of people need to know that it was
Speaker 1: a very pop based and I was lucky to have
Speaker 1: these records that started as none of those songs were singles.
Speaker 1: Never picked as single, but they ended up becoming big
Speaker 1: pop records and really saved me because when I came
Speaker 1: in there, you know, there was no but I wasn't
Speaker 1: the same space as the roots, you know, I was not.
Speaker 1: I wasn't getting budgets either. It just so happened that
Speaker 1: we had a song I was right at the minute
Speaker 1: to be dropped. And then because the first two singles
Speaker 1: came out with Dance and shout and oh, and they
Speaker 1: flopped and and the DJ out of Hawaii started to play,
Speaker 1: it wasn't me. After the fifth play, it just lit
Speaker 1: up his phone and it just continued to spread. And
Speaker 1: that's what saved my ass because I was about to
Speaker 1: be on the chopping block, you know, just like just
Speaker 1: like you guys, it was just what it was, And
Speaker 1: they weren't planning to spend money because it was just
Speaker 1: not a company that really was focused around marketing urban music.
Speaker 1: I just it was just not that kind of a
Speaker 1: climate in that company. It wasn't It wasn't that. And
Speaker 1: did you ever skip the line and go right to pop? Right?
Speaker 1: Because that was it felt like right it actually went
Speaker 1: to pop and then came back to that. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just It's just it was like it became popping then
Speaker 1: you know that, But you know what, what is it?
Speaker 1: The clubs was sucking with it so much that you know,
Speaker 1: Urban ready to say, well, you know the club is doing,
Speaker 1: we might as well play it. You know, we know that,
Speaker 1: you know, we know the White Stations is playing it.
Speaker 1: You know, but really and truly, never you get a
Speaker 1: club they're saying, it wasn't me let me rock with it,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And if you think about it,
Speaker 1: Angel wasn't as lucky. Angel continued to stay popped and
Speaker 1: didn't get back, didn't go back in it because it
Speaker 1: was never a club joint, so it didn't really connect
Speaker 1: like that, you know, while Bombasketball so from a previous
Speaker 1: album that was also club and then ended up going
Speaker 1: to pop and then Urban Urban started playing it again.
Speaker 1: So it was just a strange climate at that time,
Speaker 1: especially for Ricky who was that DJ, because that DJ
Speaker 1: is also the one that the one in Hawaii is
Speaker 1: also the one that broke in all my life for
Speaker 1: Casey and Joe, Joe and Jo they have the same
Speaker 1: situation where they were about to you know, that was
Speaker 1: about to flop the then and that's and that's the thing,
Speaker 1: like I don't think well, I mean, like you can
Speaker 1: also explain it since like seven, there's one movie that
Speaker 1: came out that sort of explained and how radio works
Speaker 1: called Before the Music Dies, that came out like two
Speaker 1: thousand and four. But you know seven, when I guess
Speaker 1: what I can call the clear channel era of radio
Speaker 1: comes into play, where now people have to pre program
Speaker 1: the music like weeks weeks ahead of time. Now it's
Speaker 1: blowing my mind because I'm like, pop pop DJs don't
Speaker 1: break records, right, So the fact that this one did
Speaker 1: and then broke these two black records that start go
Speaker 1: back to black radio when black radio usually starts, it's blowing.
Speaker 1: It's a mind blower. Yeah. Well, actually, let me ask
Speaker 1: you because I mean, I know you haven't been on
Speaker 1: terrestrial radio for a minute, but just during the time
Speaker 1: period when you were on radio, like how far advanced,
Speaker 1: Like when do they actually start feeding the machine and
Speaker 1: saying like, okay, we're gonna play this be At song
Speaker 1: fourteen times a day and they picked this specific time
Speaker 1: like they do playlist. Yeah, when does that programming start?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's a process. It's also like
Speaker 1: record reps coming to the station from that was a
Speaker 1: big thing. You know, when it comes to y'all being
Speaker 1: represented in a way, right, it's like what the record
Speaker 1: repord is selling, what's their priority? And then once it's
Speaker 1: the priority, depending on the artist, sometimes since it's a
Speaker 1: priority and it's an artist and maybe the label, you know,
Speaker 1: it's all kind of dynamics. But it's never it's never.
Speaker 1: Shaggy has always been different in that way because it's
Speaker 1: never been pop breaking records and just naturally that happening.
Speaker 1: That's a natural thing, and that doesn't happen. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of it boils down to the demographic you
Speaker 1: know what I mean when you look at at that time,
Speaker 1: they're gonna look at what urban music is selling, you know,
Speaker 1: and then they're gonna look at what reggae is. Now.
Speaker 1: There's a big argument now where you say that reggae
Speaker 1: is you know, less than five percent of the global
Speaker 1: market share. You know, so you can't expect any major
Speaker 1: company or any company to be putting major money into
Speaker 1: any act that is less than five percent of the
Speaker 1: market share. My argument to that is, when has it
Speaker 1: ever not been less than five percent? You know? When
Speaker 1: I when I was selling forty million records. I it
Speaker 1: was three you know after me, then you had Sewan
Speaker 1: Fall and everybody. It became popular. Before then, it was
Speaker 1: never on radio. Was the guy that got it on radio.
Speaker 1: So it was always less than five percent, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, nothing has ever changed on that. And
Speaker 1: these record companies they invest based on that. So it's
Speaker 1: not good. It's you know, so when when I'm doing
Speaker 1: these numbers and they're like, oh, ship, we didn't know
Speaker 1: that could happen, and so they ended up chasing. Now
Speaker 1: you sell tend million records, you would think they're gonna
Speaker 1: be like, well, you know, he just did it. Let's
Speaker 1: try and listen vest again and do that. They're looking
Speaker 1: at it like, yeah, that ain't never it. They cann
Speaker 1: think of it as that. Now where we are now today,
Speaker 1: you're seeing other genres as sort of with the DNA
Speaker 1: of dance hall reggae, Like I know that African music, okay,
Speaker 1: so I have to call West African. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: just saying you a lot of it is from now.
Speaker 1: We don't get into afro beat versus afro beats, and
Speaker 1: I want no parts of that. But what I'm basically
Speaker 1: asking is like between reggae tone and West African music
Speaker 1: and now with dance hall, are you finding it now?
Speaker 1: Are people generally trying to lump like an entire genre
Speaker 1: of non Americanized rap, non americanized pop into this uh
Speaker 1: mold that you now have to fit into Ino where say,
Speaker 1: you know, the average Joe from Kansas might not know
Speaker 1: the difference between the music that you're doing and the
Speaker 1: music that Jay Balan was doing. In the music that
Speaker 1: Badny Yeah yeah, or bad Bunny or or you know
Speaker 1: or whoever is what's so crazy? Is there? You know
Speaker 1: there's a history of Yes, you know that. Yankee called
Speaker 1: me sometime last year and asked me because there was
Speaker 1: a documentary shot supposed to be on Netflix that really
Speaker 1: talks about Gaton. He couldn't tell the story of Regaton
Speaker 1: because he wasn't there. It was before him. But he
Speaker 1: knew that he knew that, I know, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? So I and and and the starting of
Speaker 1: Relegaton started by a guy by the name of El
Speaker 1: Gringo out out from Puerto Rico, out of Brooklyn and
Speaker 1: L and L Gringo. He went to prison and then
Speaker 1: there and then El Hannao right ended up doing dance
Speaker 1: all records in Spanish right, which was put out on VP.
Speaker 1: And there was a guy, Harl Miller, who literally was
Speaker 1: the guy that was producing these songs for VP Records.
Speaker 1: An Ro ended up blowing up. Now, the crazy part
Speaker 1: about it is el Anna and I went to Erasmus
Speaker 1: Hall in Brooklyn and we would be in the lunch room,
Speaker 1: and the lunch room had the Puerto Rican click, the
Speaker 1: Panamanian click, the Jamaican click, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: the Haitian click, and we would be on the book
Speaker 1: benches and we will beat and spit free styles and
Speaker 1: people get around right exactly, and Eleanora would be over
Speaker 1: there doing the same thing in Spanish. Out of there
Speaker 1: and so him and not. That's how we became friends
Speaker 1: because I used to spit it on the bench and
Speaker 1: over there, and then he started to make these dance
Speaker 1: all these own chaperones record. Now the beat all they
Speaker 1: get one is called dem bo. You should you know
Speaker 1: that quest right? So it's called yes, it comes from
Speaker 1: it comes it comes from chavarank stemba. Now eleanor al
Speaker 1: and then used to do these reggae records, these dance
Speaker 1: on records over in Spanish and that became Spanish reggae.
Speaker 1: Carl at VP ended up calling it reggae tone and
Speaker 1: through mispronunciation over there became don't look it the guitar.
Speaker 1: That is the beginning of what is reggae top which
Speaker 1: started out of that see our faces right now to
Speaker 1: uh like Tago Calderon and those guys. Was that it
Speaker 1: was after Tega was after this. There was a guy
Speaker 1: up out of the Browns called Gungi Rivera who used
Speaker 1: to have these big nightclubs and he was the one
Speaker 1: that used to promote a lot of these Spanish reggae acts,
Speaker 1: right that used to be uptown around that time. Was
Speaker 1: a was a major force in the development of it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And that was what it is.
Speaker 1: Are you when this documentary? Yeah, they called me to
Speaker 1: tell the story because you know, in fairness to a
Speaker 1: lot of these new acts, they don't know that story.
Speaker 1: So you literally were there to witness like the incubation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was there to the whole thing. I was part
Speaker 1: of the whole thing. This is where I'm starting. This
Speaker 1: is why I'm excited saying he's a national treasure. Why
Speaker 1: doesn't the world know this? Nobody asked, but it is documented.
Speaker 1: I can tell you it is true. Now, say, for instance,
Speaker 1: when we did Afrobeat. Now let's go to the Africa,
Speaker 1: West Africa, as you would say, Um, I used to
Speaker 1: go to Uganda, Kenya, tans in all these places and
Speaker 1: I would play stadiums because the main music of of
Speaker 1: those country was dance all. It was not Zook or
Speaker 1: or you. He wasn't here in Fella Cote or any
Speaker 1: of these guys. It was dance all in the streets
Speaker 1: and the clubs of Nigeria or any any of these places.
Speaker 1: It's dance all. And so we would go. I would
Speaker 1: go there, play stadiums and a lot of these artists
Speaker 1: would would open for us. You know, you're talking a
Speaker 1: lot of these artists. You see a big art AFROBA
Speaker 1: artists opens on a lot of shows firs down there.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. We could go back even
Speaker 1: further when you look at you know there's a lot
Speaker 1: of opening You're talking about the Spice Girl open for
Speaker 1: Shaggy and Instic you know, I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean uh in Sync. We used to do road shows
Speaker 1: in Europe at that time when they opened for us.
Speaker 1: So it's it's been center Ana. It's been a whole
Speaker 1: journey of of how that that would be going, because
Speaker 1: I've been doing for thirty odd years, you know, of
Speaker 1: of doing that. So in the Afro beat, if you listened,
Speaker 1: it is really influenced by a dance all right, even
Speaker 1: though they have developed their own sound, right, but but
Speaker 1: it was really kind of influence from that. What is
Speaker 1: what is the correlation or the just the relationship between
Speaker 1: like dancehall and also what is called lover's rock, Like
Speaker 1: I guess the so love's rock Okay. So if you
Speaker 1: look at what Jamaican music started from, started from a
Speaker 1: beat called mental Mental into ska Scott into what's known
Speaker 1: as rock steady exactly. And it's really about the shuffle
Speaker 1: that makes it go chack chick chickick, and then there
Speaker 1: you go reggae chick chick. It's a different vibe of
Speaker 1: how it's done. It's really about the tempo and the
Speaker 1: feel of it that moves it from a ska to
Speaker 1: a rock steady. And rock steady is out of rock
Speaker 1: steady came what is known as lovers rock. What loves
Speaker 1: rocket is it's that one drop reggae and people sing
Speaker 1: these beautiful love songs and white became Love's rock is
Speaker 1: because they used to do a lot of covers, Like
Speaker 1: a lot of these big reggae songs were covered tape.
Speaker 1: For instance, you look at Let's Just Go, Let's Just Go,
Speaker 1: even one of the biggest all right, and these are
Speaker 1: white boys, and it blew up because the white but
Speaker 1: it also blew up because they were just great covers.
Speaker 1: Red Red Wine by U B forty was originally Neil
Speaker 1: Diamond that red but they did it over in reggae
Speaker 1: and it became now Neil Diamond. When he singing, he
Speaker 1: does a regular version, right, you better? Yeah, knowledge, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know that was a cover. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that sounds like I can't help falling in love? Right
Speaker 1: was Elvis Presley, but was done by UB forty. Then
Speaker 1: then you have the other flip side of it, you know,
Speaker 1: like girls just want to have fun. Cindy Lawpool was
Speaker 1: the basic common base was done by Slide Robbie to
Speaker 1: the biggest you know what I mean. So there's there's
Speaker 1: a lot Jimmy time out. You're telling me that Slide
Speaker 1: Robbie are the rhythm section there. There were session musicians
Speaker 1: in in in uh in America, I know that, but
Speaker 1: I could have thought Philly's on the Hooters. Why know
Speaker 1: they wrote it, but I didn't know. But the drummond
Speaker 1: bass of it, the groove of that was That's why, Cindy.
Speaker 1: But you might have to join question supreme and then
Speaker 1: and then even with with with songs like of course
Speaker 1: you know Steve Wonder wrote a lot of of of
Speaker 1: a couple of songs for the Third World also yes
Speaker 1: love and uh right yes yes, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people think that now that we find loved, which was
Speaker 1: done by a heavy d which was also made popular
Speaker 1: by a Third world. But the original, the original was
Speaker 1: the old Jades, Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. So
Speaker 1: so it's it's when you think of the blend of
Speaker 1: music of how stuff is and even those early Grace
Speaker 1: Jones records which were which were slide Robbie's Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean compass point when Guthrie. So you look at the
Speaker 1: building of Island Records and what it is was reggae bass.
Speaker 1: You look at somebody like Chris Blackwell who founded to
Speaker 1: and YouTube was a it was a YouTube was a
Speaker 1: folk band when he discovered those guys and he transformed
Speaker 1: them into a rock bat you know. It was kind
Speaker 1: of a Christian style folk band. Wait, you're dropping so
Speaker 1: many bombs right now, just to make sure, you said
Speaker 1: Gwen Guthrie. So you're saying, ain't nothing going on? But
Speaker 1: the rent is also yes, yes, that makes total sense. Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay, Wait, I get more education, but I
Speaker 1: gotta know your your life. Yeah yeah. What was your
Speaker 1: very first musical memory? My first music of memory was
Speaker 1: my grandmother used to play. We were from a poor
Speaker 1: neighborhood in Kingston, Raytown and from a place called um
Speaker 1: with small fishing village in Raytown where I was on
Speaker 1: Charlotte Street. We lived in one room. My grandmother used
Speaker 1: to play a lot of radio because we didn't have television,
Speaker 1: and I, as a katie, you used to think that
Speaker 1: the guy was in the radio singing. I had no
Speaker 1: idea that was records. I used to listen to these
Speaker 1: really wonderful records. But I remember writing my own song,
Speaker 1: and it's called your Mind, my very first song. I
Speaker 1: was probably outstay around eight nine years old or some
Speaker 1: ship as You're a mind, You're a mind, You're a mind,
Speaker 1: your mind, You're really really mine? And my love come,
Speaker 1: I love is ever last, and You're free a lot
Speaker 1: of view and flower you a lot of my life
Speaker 1: every hour and as long as I can't remember the
Speaker 1: lurriss after that. But that was my first thing I
Speaker 1: ever written, just in my head by listening to the radio.
Speaker 1: So the radio was a comfort for me where music
Speaker 1: was concerned, and I just really listened to all of
Speaker 1: those songs, and there was songs like Mahalia Jackson was
Speaker 1: a big thing in my house, even early songs like
Speaker 1: if I know, if you know, for you guys familiar
Speaker 1: with Toots in the Maytous, you know, yeah, exactly, yeah,
Speaker 1: a big Toots fan. My grandmother was, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: so a lot of these records. Bing Crosby was a
Speaker 1: big thing. That King Cole was a big thing in
Speaker 1: my in my household. So on Sundays in Jamaica, it
Speaker 1: goes that type of music goes well with chicken and
Speaker 1: rice and peace, which is when we were doing these
Speaker 1: Sinata records, these Sinatra records, you know, we're repertoires that
Speaker 1: I too, and we're growing up on Sundays. Because reggae
Speaker 1: in Jamaica didn't start playing too they I would say
Speaker 1: probably around the eighties somebody told me that in Jamaica,
Speaker 1: that's the first big superstar in Jamaica. Was like Bob
Speaker 1: Marley for real? Like they were like, for real, that's
Speaker 1: like large largest, Well he's the large Yeah, he's the
Speaker 1: he's the largest one. But there were people like, for instance,
Speaker 1: reggae music was looked down on. It was I was
Speaker 1: gonna ask, how how does that work with? Okay, every American,
Speaker 1: every American that I know is super super conservative m
Speaker 1: and you know, I always wanted to know, how did
Speaker 1: Jamaican natives that are like the parents of my Jamaican
Speaker 1: friends who are strictly Christian, don't like you know, uh,
Speaker 1: secular music and all that stuff. How does that mention
Speaker 1: with the culture of like Bob Marley and like, was
Speaker 1: that the gangster rap of the time? Any Jamaican you
Speaker 1: know that is in that kind of it ty tity
Speaker 1: for the lack of a better word, kind of a person.
Speaker 1: There were uptowners. So there's two things. There's downtown and
Speaker 1: there's uptown. The uptown are the more privileged class of people,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. There's a crazy story that
Speaker 1: Bob Marley lived on a street called Hope Road, where
Speaker 1: is where Tough Gong is. Back in the days, that's
Speaker 1: the same street that the King's houses, which is where
Speaker 1: the Queen's resident is, that's where that's the same that's
Speaker 1: the same street that the that the Prime Minister's residences are.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean when you look when you
Speaker 1: look at it, that house that Bob Marley lived in
Speaker 1: fifty six Hope Road was actually purchased by Chris Blackwell,
Speaker 1: which was a white Jamaican that lived around the Warner
Speaker 1: at a place called Terra Nova that is now a hotel,
Speaker 1: which was his original home. So it took it took
Speaker 1: a British, well, a Jamaica white guy to actually buy
Speaker 1: that because there's a rast affair, and Bob wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been able to purchase that because it was because it
Speaker 1: was what's known as classes and in Jamaica back in
Speaker 1: them days, so that when you look at Yellow Man
Speaker 1: and these guys, those guys, at one point in Jamaica,
Speaker 1: if you were a certain color, you couldn't come past
Speaker 1: the half a tree clock because that's how it was
Speaker 1: because you ain't from that class. After a shortain hour
Speaker 1: you're not up there. This is this is years because
Speaker 1: to be from that class you had to be lighter
Speaker 1: and more affiliated with exactly. So for me, I'm from
Speaker 1: the British rule. It's just it's just if you're talking
Speaker 1: about colonialism, yeah, you know from that that's inherited down,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So as goals, you see
Speaker 1: people coming into all of this where you see uptowners
Speaker 1: now started to do dance all. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like like take for instance, like a Sean Paul Is,
Speaker 1: he's from the uptown. Juna Gone is from the uptown
Speaker 1: because those guys are from parents that you know, when
Speaker 1: Bob Barley made money, he went the whole pro that's uptown.
Speaker 1: Unag a guy like Juna Gone would go to you know,
Speaker 1: a good school and goes to while another set of
Speaker 1: people now they're from the streets of the streets, the
Speaker 1: hood of the hood, your top will steeview garden deep
Speaker 1: on the gardens, your top, the hood, the hood, the hood,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But after a while, it's
Speaker 1: kind of became one when when when the uptown kids
Speaker 1: started to do it, then it started to become accepted.
Speaker 1: You mentioned yellow Man earlier, and I've read, uh something
Speaker 1: like stuff about him just about how some of the
Speaker 1: struggles he faced, like being because he was albino, and
Speaker 1: like he was a bino. The crazy thing about yellow
Speaker 1: Man He's is here is an albino guy. That's a
Speaker 1: guy that made me want to get into music. That's right,
Speaker 1: because I saw I went to a dance at skate Land,
Speaker 1: which is a popular venue, and he spit his lyrics
Speaker 1: and walked out. Yeah, well some other job I think
Speaker 1: was eyes getting married. He had all the big records
Speaker 1: at that time, walked in, spit his lyric, who walk
Speaker 1: out and the whole dance walked out with him. I
Speaker 1: was like, damn, I want to be that guy. But
Speaker 1: but the crazy thing that he was an albino you
Speaker 1: know I mean, which is also looked down at in Jamaica.
Speaker 1: You know, he was like they called him and he
Speaker 1: was at a place called poor Hopes at the time,
Speaker 1: which is kind of an orphanage in a way that
Speaker 1: he came right and he rose out of that to
Speaker 1: become one of the superstar And now I always say
Speaker 1: to shift culture, it takes a superstar that means a
Speaker 1: star with superhero like talent, charisma, work, ethic, charm right
Speaker 1: to shift talent because if you look at Yellow Man,
Speaker 1: he didn't have a movement behind him, but the world
Speaker 1: stopping took notice because he was a superstar, a star
Speaker 1: with superhero like talent shaper ranks. He walked in the room.
Speaker 1: You want to know who the fund is that that's
Speaker 1: a superstar. You got stars, and stars are okay promote culture,
Speaker 1: but are they gonna shift culture? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And those are the guys that shift culture with superhero
Speaker 1: like talent right where they don't need lights and they
Speaker 1: don't need cranes throwing them out. They don't even need
Speaker 1: a record company spending money. They just got that ship
Speaker 1: that sway they walk in and they open them to everybody,
Speaker 1: be like, who the fuck is that? That motherfucker is
Speaker 1: the ship? That's what those guys are. Those are that's
Speaker 1: the stars. And you have people who knew how to
Speaker 1: find those. If you look at say you look at everybody,
Speaker 1: say you look at all the billionaires. Now you look
Speaker 1: at and question, you can understand this. You got Kanye
Speaker 1: and then you got no, no, but you could understand
Speaker 1: You're gonna understand what I'm saying playing with you, So
Speaker 1: you got you got Kanye and you got Rhanna. Both
Speaker 1: of them are billionaires or whatever. Right, who is their lego? Jay? Right? Right?
Speaker 1: And you look at you look at Nicki, and you
Speaker 1: look at Drake. Who is their lego? Okay? You look
Speaker 1: at fifty, You look at eminem you look you look
Speaker 1: at um uh snoop, who is this lego? Drake? You
Speaker 1: look at Alicia Keys. Alicia Key is arguably one of
Speaker 1: the greatest you know, songwriter, singer songwriter. But let's let's
Speaker 1: face it. She got Clive Davis her first she had
Speaker 1: She didn't have to have a worry like me and
Speaker 1: you was where we gotta sit down and worry about
Speaker 1: whether we got budgets. So we got marketing and she
Speaker 1: got all of that live major shotow on that and
Speaker 1: guess what her first interview was, Oprah. And if you
Speaker 1: think about it, now, who's our lego? Rick guys? And
Speaker 1: they have leg Ricky guys and they have the lego
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So and I'm not against
Speaker 1: the lego. I'm for it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But in our culture, they have not been those opportunities
Speaker 1: a lot. Well, you're giving the layout, you're giving it now.
Speaker 1: So that's all I do. If you look at the
Speaker 1: if you look at the pattern of things that I do.
Speaker 1: I did Uh Summertime with an unknown artist named Rayvon Right.
Speaker 1: I did It Wasn't Me with an unknown artist named
Speaker 1: Rick Raw. I did Angel with an unknown artist named Ravon.
Speaker 1: I did I Need Your Love with two unknown artists
Speaker 1: named Mahambi and Fadie. I did Banana with another which
Speaker 1: is the billion dollar the two billions stream on TikTok
Speaker 1: with an unknown artist named named Conqueror. And then I
Speaker 1: just did Spice at a hundred and fifty billion streams
Speaker 1: with So I always look for that. Yeah, I look
Speaker 1: for those records, those artists that have that thing, and
Speaker 1: I go and I put that that in there, and
Speaker 1: I make those type of records because I'm not privileged
Speaker 1: to have budgets and rollouts, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So I just do what I can. This is already
Speaker 1: one of the half hour and it's probably one of
Speaker 1: the greatest educations that I've had from a person that's
Speaker 1: watched the Herder. They fall like a billion times, is okay.
Speaker 1: So if if you are trying to establish yourself and
Speaker 1: not go to to America, there's a difference between. You know,
Speaker 1: half of the hip hop world came from Jamaica, but
Speaker 1: they had to come to New York first too to shine.
Speaker 1: But if you're in Jamaica and you want to get
Speaker 1: put on, what is the route? Like? What's can you
Speaker 1: walk me through? Now? I know it's different now because
Speaker 1: of like digital colonialism, like you do one viral thing
Speaker 1: on YouTube and then maybe make it. But say, okay,
Speaker 1: in the eighties, if you want to get put on,
Speaker 1: how does what what's the what's the maze? The sort
Speaker 1: of circuit journey? Yes, well to me, I'm glad you
Speaker 1: said now and then, because it's totally different now than
Speaker 1: what it was then. You know, back then it was
Speaker 1: highly it was highly dependent on the sound system. So
Speaker 1: the sound system was where you would go and freestyle.
Speaker 1: This is where we're a supercat. These guys come from.
Speaker 1: So you have the Killer Maanjar or you have King Tubby's,
Speaker 1: you have Johnny sound System, you have all these sound systems.
Speaker 1: Those sound systems were what the ghetto kids could get
Speaker 1: on and spit. So they'll have these street dances and
Speaker 1: on these street dances, if anybody, if you were good
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood and you and you spitting on the
Speaker 1: streets and people are hearing you. You create your little
Speaker 1: fan base and it once the community know, you get
Speaker 1: on that mic and you get hurt, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. They used to have a thing called the
Speaker 1: Tasties Talent Contest, which was also a big way for
Speaker 1: people to get um discovered back in Jamaica back in
Speaker 1: the Earth days, you know what I mean. So the
Speaker 1: sound system was where it was because I even started
Speaker 1: started on the sound system out of Brooklyn too at
Speaker 1: the same time. That's how I ended up on Gibraltar
Speaker 1: sound System and created my bus within Brooklyn where I
Speaker 1: was at you know, Starlight ball Room, built board ball Room,
Speaker 1: all of that at that time, and created my own
Speaker 1: little buzz and my own little name when I started
Speaker 1: doing big up at Mompey and all those records, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. But I started on sound systems,
Speaker 1: so that was it. Nowadays they got this. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't need to like these kids artists. Now they'll
Speaker 1: do work like you know, like you when you were
Speaker 1: promoting the roots. I'm sure you traveled all over the
Speaker 1: world and did regional radio and ship like that. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. They don't do that. Now they
Speaker 1: do a click of the button and say hey they
Speaker 1: goes promo. But it's a different challenge. I mean, they don't,
Speaker 1: we don't do like the radio and stuff. But it
Speaker 1: is you can press that click of a button. But
Speaker 1: the bottleneck is now everyone can press that button. So
Speaker 1: now you're fighting for of the attention even if you
Speaker 1: don't you know, have the budgets or whatever, the tallenge
Speaker 1: attention or the talent, right, you're just fighting for the
Speaker 1: attention because everyone but you see, I disagree in some
Speaker 1: in one sense, I agree that there's a lot of them,
Speaker 1: but if you're a true talent, you could get through
Speaker 1: because if you look at it, there's a lot of bullshit.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. If you if you one
Speaker 1: of those guys that I'm saying, you say that when
Speaker 1: you walk and you ain't gotta get your ship and
Speaker 1: be like who the fund is that you're gonna know? You?
Speaker 1: You know, it's just because it's like when you saw
Speaker 1: a coffee did that freestyle and everybody looked up. When
Speaker 1: she was on BBC one Extra and she did that freestyle.
Speaker 1: Aside chronics and You're like, who the funk is that?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? You're curiosity is jump and
Speaker 1: she all she did was one preestop. She do nothing crazy,
Speaker 1: but it was just so special. You want to know
Speaker 1: who the hell that was? And and so nobody You
Speaker 1: will get through the clutter if you're that good and
Speaker 1: you have to be you just gotta be that. I
Speaker 1: always tell the artists, I said, you want to cut
Speaker 1: you to clutter, You gotta perfect your craft? What does
Speaker 1: that entail in terms of reggae culture? Like I know
Speaker 1: in hip hop culture? You know, the very beginning to
Speaker 1: reach spent a lot of time in dictionary learning words
Speaker 1: he never knew before. You know, constantly like what's what's
Speaker 1: impressive for a dancehall artist? Two? Is it melodic delivery?
Speaker 1: Is it words? Is it the rhythm that he happens
Speaker 1: to be rhyming over? Like what it's really what you
Speaker 1: bring to that you just said he started the dictionary.
Speaker 1: That was what he brought to the table that was
Speaker 1: different from everybody else. It's really what you're bringing to
Speaker 1: the table, like to to set you apart, because everybody
Speaker 1: could sit there and say they're gonna spit lyrics. But
Speaker 1: what is that that specialised style that you're gonna bring
Speaker 1: that's gonna set you apart? For me, yeah, I was lyrical,
Speaker 1: but I also had this voice. Yeah ba a long
Speaker 1: time Bombustard rom On to Yeah do that ship? Just
Speaker 1: set me? Then apart? That was where that was recognizable.
Speaker 1: Wait stop, wait, how did you develop that boy voice?
Speaker 1: I was in the military. I used to run and
Speaker 1: sing cadences. This is the story I was waiting for. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I used to run the scene and say, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I've been told CEO panish. I used to see
Speaker 1: because the drill instructors will talk to you like that
Speaker 1: boy drop and give a toilet board. You know, they
Speaker 1: put that voice, and so I used to mock them
Speaker 1: as as as a joke because it made me. Voice
Speaker 1: came from I swear man, wait till I tell Higgins this,
Speaker 1: Steve Yeah. And then and then the crazy part is
Speaker 1: I ended up singing. I ended up doing Old Carolina
Speaker 1: in that voice, because it's all right. If you ever
Speaker 1: listened to that song called big Up, Big Up, Big Up,
Speaker 1: Big Up, big Up, noticed, noticed that's a that's a
Speaker 1: different tone of voice than the Old Carolina. Even if
Speaker 1: I tell you about many Yeah, put down and out
Speaker 1: of big up right. That Rickett is a different tone
Speaker 1: of voice, you know. And then I went ahead and
Speaker 1: did that. Yeah, I didn't already fell on the floor
Speaker 1: before y'all even got on the line. I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to I'm I'm blocking me. I my mind. He's talking
Speaker 1: about it. It comes from a Southern He took a
Speaker 1: Southern a mirror, you took a Southern dialect, like like
Speaker 1: a drill sergeant. Yeah. Well, the more you know, and
Speaker 1: just kind of worked that worked with that. So when
Speaker 1: when did you move to the United States? I would
Speaker 1: I came to you? Oh okay, Oh so you came
Speaker 1: to these states specifically to go to the army. No.
Speaker 1: I came to the States. My mom was a journalist
Speaker 1: in Jamaica, the main um newspaper here called the Gleaner,
Speaker 1: the Daily Gleaner, and my mother she migrated to the
Speaker 1: States and I'm being I'm an only child, so I
Speaker 1: ended up coming to America where her years afterwards, when
Speaker 1: I was living with my grandmother in Jamaica and in
Speaker 1: I came up and it was a culture shock. I
Speaker 1: lived at On in New York Avenue between Tilden and
Speaker 1: Beverley in the building called the Irma, I can't remember it,
Speaker 1: and I went to Erasmus Paul and I just kind
Speaker 1: of it was a shop culture shot because I'm seeing snow,
Speaker 1: and I think what shocked me the most was that
Speaker 1: people did their laundries and laundry mats because I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't because we did it in our backyard and
Speaker 1: the Yeah, And I couldn't believe that people would let
Speaker 1: people touch their drawers like they would full drawers and
Speaker 1: ship that I was. I was embarrassed when I went
Speaker 1: to the launderback with my mother because people were seeing
Speaker 1: my drawers. I was like, I couldn't believe that. I
Speaker 1: was just I was just raised different. It was like,
Speaker 1: you're gonna just You're gonna just fold your drawers in
Speaker 1: front of everybody like that with the buck. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: to me, it was like that. So it was a
Speaker 1: it was a big culture shot, but it was also
Speaker 1: a melting pot because I didn't know there were Haitians
Speaker 1: and I didn't know they were Trinidan audiens. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that there were Panamanians. I didn't know. I just
Speaker 1: knew Jamaica. And then I started to figure out different
Speaker 1: people's cultures and realized that they all were similar and
Speaker 1: that you know a lot of them really embodied dance
Speaker 1: all at reggae, and I was a kid that really
Speaker 1: soaked all of that up. How did witnessing American hip
Speaker 1: hop affect you when you got here? I went to
Speaker 1: Erasmus that had a lot of like special letter was there.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of rappers that came out of
Speaker 1: that school. So hip hop was it was a beat
Speaker 1: box era, so it's you know, um Slick Rick was Jamaican,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, Douggy Fresh was. It was that whole vibe.
Speaker 1: So that's the the all that ship. It was things
Speaker 1: that I was like, you know, so that even when
Speaker 1: you guys had Rozel, you know that I was a
Speaker 1: big fan of Housel because you know, he did that ship,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean I think I think when when
Speaker 1: Houston died, we were at the same day house of
Speaker 1: that and that's when that we did a little freestyle
Speaker 1: thing Rozel at that time. So I was into hip
Speaker 1: hop from that point of course. Then I ended up
Speaker 1: knowing Cool Herd down the line and and realized how
Speaker 1: the whole thing come. But so wait, White High School
Speaker 1: what high school was this Erasmus Hall. It's the second
Speaker 1: high oldest high school in the United States. It's actually
Speaker 1: the high school that Clyde David started their Arista out
Speaker 1: of and where Barbara's Tristan graduated from. A lot of
Speaker 1: huge change superstars named there. It's in the heart of Flatbush.
Speaker 1: It's right on Flatbush Avenue in Church, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. And that's where it's in Brooklyn. That's where
Speaker 1: I was, I was at and the whole vibe, you know,
Speaker 1: it is just where this this whole energy came from.
Speaker 1: You came here in five so I guess you were yeah, ye,
Speaker 1: all right, So what were your by that point? What
Speaker 1: were your life goals in terms of I wanted to
Speaker 1: be popular because because my my my mother dressed me funny,
Speaker 1: you know's yeah, that's old school Jamaican woman that you know.
Speaker 1: She she would give me her jacket, you know, and
Speaker 1: she got pink in it and light blue and shared
Speaker 1: and you know the funk. I know, you know, she
Speaker 1: poured I'm going to school, you know, I wonder why
Speaker 1: nobody is, you know, is being friends with me, you know,
Speaker 1: except the Haitian kids that he drest worse than me.
Speaker 1: So so. But after a while I had. Once I
Speaker 1: started doing was spitting lyrics. I became popular and I
Speaker 1: realized that if I I started to talking, I see
Speaker 1: a little cutie, I talked about her hair, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, or bamboo hair bearings, and you know, I
Speaker 1: had to talk about her boots and her sheepskinting jacket,
Speaker 1: and you know, I talked about all of that and
Speaker 1: spitting the rhyme. I get a number and I realized,
Speaker 1: oh shit, I get chicks like this and I didn't music.
Speaker 1: I wish I could say something deeper than that, but
Speaker 1: it's really pussy like um. I got into music because
Speaker 1: I wanted to get laid. You know, I realized, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I realized that I spit lyrics. I was
Speaker 1: a ghetto superstar. I got these locally hits. I did
Speaker 1: into clubs of free, I drink for free, and I
Speaker 1: walked out with the hottest chick and I was in heaven.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is what I want to do.
Speaker 1: So for me, you know, I love what yellow Man
Speaker 1: did and I was fascinated by that. But when I
Speaker 1: was in Brooklyn, there was no real outlet for dancing,
Speaker 1: so my mother was like, you need to go do
Speaker 1: something with yourself. And so I started to sell drugs,
Speaker 1: you know. I started to sell weed. You know, I
Speaker 1: was on clarks On nostrom, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And then at a spot down the Gates Avenue. So
Speaker 1: you got into weed and coke and started, you know, hustling.
Speaker 1: That's what. That's what because every Jamaican I know, all
Speaker 1: my uncles, they're all hustler. So us, especially in New York,
Speaker 1: they had a good weed all the Jamaican. Yeah, until
Speaker 1: after a while, mother start getting locked started getting locked up,
Speaker 1: and you'd be like, Okay, I gotta get out of
Speaker 1: this ship, you know. And so and so I went
Speaker 1: into the military. That's how I ended up in the
Speaker 1: Middle to I walked down the Flatwish Avenue at the
Speaker 1: junction and walked in and looked at all the uniforms
Speaker 1: and looked at the Marines and say, yeah, I could
Speaker 1: get some chicks in that, get laid in that I want.
Speaker 1: It's the hardest one, the hardest. I didn't know. I
Speaker 1: just the uniform look the best though, because it's really
Speaker 1: because really, if you think about it, who wants to
Speaker 1: be in the in the Navy. They were were bell
Speaker 1: bottom broke the bell. Butto you know's got that little
Speaker 1: thing that looked like a blouse right now. So for me,
Speaker 1: the Mariees just looked like that, you know, that that dress,
Speaker 1: blue ship and that yo bro. I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: that ship, I want to do that. And then this
Speaker 1: guy called Perez, uh, sergeant Perez, I remember his name,
Speaker 1: that come in and it's like, yo, you know, use
Speaker 1: my recruiter. Yeah, I want to get out of everybody
Speaker 1: next week. I was like, I can't get you off this.
Speaker 1: We get you two weeks from now. I was like,
Speaker 1: if I ain't going out next week, I ain't going.
Speaker 1: And he, you know, kind of worked some things. I
Speaker 1: ended up going in two weeks after that. And so
Speaker 1: wait where did you go? And then when did you
Speaker 1: realized that you was in the Marines? And that was different.
Speaker 1: I didn't know I was in the Marines because I
Speaker 1: passed all the tests and I went to North Carolina
Speaker 1: on the bus h Campbell Joe, Yeah, June stepped out
Speaker 1: on him yellow footprints and they just started screaming, steaming
Speaker 1: in my face. North Carolina. Yeah. So I would set
Speaker 1: up on the yellow footprints and they just started screaming
Speaker 1: at me and pick your chew into back ho and
Speaker 1: it was you know, so I chucked him because I'm
Speaker 1: I'm from Brooklyn. I was like, yo, quote, I'm of
Speaker 1: his and I see like six of them come down
Speaker 1: and me, I was like, okay, that's a bad idea.
Speaker 1: As a teenager, were you super rebellious? Like what is
Speaker 1: it to be in the American Army? Like in terms
Speaker 1: of like do you realize like, Okay, this is something
Speaker 1: that has a lot of discipline and we gotta wake
Speaker 1: up five in the morning to a bunch of at
Speaker 1: least this is what I see on television. But being
Speaker 1: an only child, uh, a very strict mother, I was.
Speaker 1: I was very good. Like I would come Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would come home from school and I'd be the only
Speaker 1: person I knew where the key was on the onder
Speaker 1: the map. I'd go in and make myself a sandwich.
Speaker 1: I do my homework because my mom moved with ass.
Speaker 1: It wasn't you know my my mom would send you
Speaker 1: for the ship to whoop your ass. You know, you'd
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, I go
Speaker 1: go get the ship, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: and it and the beatings was not it was you know,
Speaker 1: there was the legendary or asked whoopen? You know? So
Speaker 1: I was raised on that. So for me would come
Speaker 1: into America, I was always very disciplined and on it.
Speaker 1: I really didn't get into too many trouble. But I
Speaker 1: also like nice things and I wanted to be fly
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So if if I worked at Basking Robbins for one day,
Speaker 1: you know, I add a little apron on a little
Speaker 1: thing and the chick there was a hot quarto Rican
Speaker 1: chick came and and she wanted you know, started asks,
Speaker 1: just scooping her ice cream. Just didn't look cool. I
Speaker 1: was like, this ain't me yo. I was out. How
Speaker 1: far did you get? And you really your hands registered
Speaker 1: as weapons? I don't know my hands are registered as
Speaker 1: a weapon. But I was in the first golf for
Speaker 1: seven months. There's a storm yet bad much respects. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I did four years, but I didn't come out. It's funny.
Speaker 1: I didn't come out as a muddle marine. I came
Speaker 1: out one above a private. I got demoted twice. Wait demoted, Yeah,
Speaker 1: how get for a wall? Because I would I would
Speaker 1: drive from North Carolina to New York every weekend, and
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to go outside of a fifty mile radios.
Speaker 1: And I would drive. I did Old Carolina and big
Speaker 1: Up in my uniform on a weekend and went back
Speaker 1: in on Soup c Circle uh at forty second Street.
Speaker 1: They had to think called super circles where you jump
Speaker 1: into the van and they take you back. And so
Speaker 1: I did those records in my uniform, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And I would drive, and if I drive,
Speaker 1: I drive down in my uniform, so that most of
Speaker 1: the State troopers were ex military, so they stopped you.
Speaker 1: They'd be like, okay, slow down, Marine and let you go.
Speaker 1: So I would always drive in my uniform, and I'd
Speaker 1: come to and link up with Sting International, who was
Speaker 1: a DJ out of Brooklyn at the time, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was my early producer, and we would make records.
Speaker 1: And I go right back into my early records, like
Speaker 1: Mom did those songs when it happened. I was in
Speaker 1: the military. I didn't even know they were hot, and
Speaker 1: they were just hot. And where those records put out
Speaker 1: on a label or how did the business work? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a little, There was a little. There was
Speaker 1: a guy called Ben Sokologue. His brother was Will Sockolog,
Speaker 1: Will Socolo had Little soccoloved the Sleeping Bag label. What
Speaker 1: I'm saying, yeah, so so so I did a record
Speaker 1: called Gunshot, which was a big record that was blowing
Speaker 1: up on Sleeping Jazzy. Jeff would know about that record
Speaker 1: because he loved that. Yeah right, and that was on
Speaker 1: Sleeping Bag and Ben soft Colad was his brother that
Speaker 1: had his label calls Signet, And then I would put
Speaker 1: all of those early records like Big Up and mom Pa.
Speaker 1: All those records came out eating Old Carolina came out
Speaker 1: initially on Signet. Yeah, but then he tried, he tried
Speaker 1: some when I got I got signed for a million
Speaker 1: dollars in the biggest amount in the history of dance,
Speaker 1: all the reggae at that time. And then he was
Speaker 1: trying to you know, he was trying to do the
Speaker 1: E G E B G B on me, you know,
Speaker 1: and we had we had to cut that nigga loose.
Speaker 1: We had to cut boy and loose. I always wanted
Speaker 1: to know this because I don't I don't know if
Speaker 1: I know an musician that served in any of the
Speaker 1: Bullish One era wars, but when they're going to send
Speaker 1: you guys to Kuwait, what's going through your mind? Because
Speaker 1: you know, before that period, all we knew was Vietnam,
Speaker 1: and I think that America had this whole like never again,
Speaker 1: like we'll never get into another war ever again in
Speaker 1: this lifetime. And then like I remember, like when they
Speaker 1: may be announcement, especially ninety one, that yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 1: go to war. You know that that that was like
Speaker 1: a I mean, now, a tragedy happens and then it's
Speaker 1: just like drop something, you know, But you know back
Speaker 1: then it was like, yo, going to war, what's gonna happen?
Speaker 1: So like in your mind, what were your thoughts? My
Speaker 1: thoughts at that point was to hate the dude that
Speaker 1: actually convinced me to go into military. The guy called
Speaker 1: Mark I forgot his last name. He was my boy,
Speaker 1: was like, oh yeah, in the military. And then when
Speaker 1: I when I signed up, he had tried to send
Speaker 1: a letter to me saying, don't come into this ship.
Speaker 1: Don't come into this ship. Already I was already done.
Speaker 1: I was like that asshole. Here I am. People do
Speaker 1: twenty years in the military and they get a paycheck
Speaker 1: for the rest of their life. I do four years
Speaker 1: and I'm in a fucking war. What like, what are
Speaker 1: the odds? And that's what was going through my mind
Speaker 1: as far as my life is concerned. It really gave
Speaker 1: me an opportunity to be thankful or take a lot
Speaker 1: of things, not take a lot of things for granted.
Speaker 1: Like I used to take my mom's cooking for granted
Speaker 1: because I always think that I'm going to go to
Speaker 1: my next door neighbor was his mom could better? You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, or whatever it is, And and
Speaker 1: I would get up out of my bed and not
Speaker 1: not make it. When I was in the war, I
Speaker 1: was sleeping on a cop you know, are sleeping bag
Speaker 1: or and and then I was eating Mr Ease, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and then and I never meal was ready to eat.
Speaker 1: It's it's like, yeah, premium process process military food. And
Speaker 1: then I would I would have to dig a hole
Speaker 1: to take a dump. And it's so much ship that
Speaker 1: hit you. Then you realize that, oh ship, you had
Speaker 1: a lot of things good that you didn't realize. So
Speaker 1: when I got out the military, I was a changed
Speaker 1: person in so many ways because I realized what not
Speaker 1: to take for granted. You know what I'm saying there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that related. So while I was
Speaker 1: in there that I didn't fear for my life someone
Speaker 1: because we were so gunna hold about and in the
Speaker 1: military in the in the war, it was hurry up
Speaker 1: and weight So literally we fought the war for about
Speaker 1: two days. The rest of it was you know, running
Speaker 1: around and moving around. The two days of two to
Speaker 1: three days of heavy fighting. Then they stopped. It was
Speaker 1: where it was to the shelling, and those three days
Speaker 1: was crazy. We were we moved, he came back home.
Speaker 1: Did you like you have to go through any kind
Speaker 1: of therapy, a counseling just to kind of react, Justine, No,
Speaker 1: that was that was the easiest war because you got
Speaker 1: had lot. It wasn't like Afghanistan or this place. You know,
Speaker 1: the Gulf War was a cake welcome player to the
Speaker 1: rest of those bro you know what I mean. It
Speaker 1: was low casualty, and I get it. You know, we
Speaker 1: lost people, so one son or a daughter from my
Speaker 1: mom or a pop is not low casualty. But in
Speaker 1: the things, yeah, it's considered low low casualty. So I
Speaker 1: got out, you know, unfazed by it, but in a way,
Speaker 1: very thankful, very very appreciative and very aware of how
Speaker 1: fortunate I am, you know, and I never looked back
Speaker 1: once you once you signed the doted line and the
Speaker 1: government owns you. Yeah, how fast can you get out
Speaker 1: of it? Like I'm certain that in basically four years,
Speaker 1: you gotta do your four years. Okay, it's high school
Speaker 1: college unless you get kicked out. Unless you get kicked out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you get kicked out, then you know you
Speaker 1: you can't own and you can't hold any government jobs.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. There's so many things that
Speaker 1: you can't do once you get kicked out. I got
Speaker 1: issues government like barbage man to like even anything, police,
Speaker 1: anything any you can't do any of those those things.
Speaker 1: There's certain things you just can't do when you're out.
Speaker 1: If you look at Walt Disney, when you always see
Speaker 1: Walt Disney sitting down, if you noticed there's always those
Speaker 1: pictures behind him. There was one that was upside down
Speaker 1: that was his dishonored with discharge. Ah hey, hey, there
Speaker 1: there's a major history of like Jimi Hendrix, Rick James, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: people that I was not a model marine. I came
Speaker 1: out one of other PFC. But if you go to
Speaker 1: Paris Holland. Now my pictures like Shaggy's very they sell me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they used being recruit these days. How did you transition
Speaker 1: because you know, being in the military and that's like
Speaker 1: very you know, rigid, it's structure, you have, you know,
Speaker 1: time every day. How was the transition going into the
Speaker 1: music business where nothing is structured? How did you make
Speaker 1: that transition? I think it's what set me apart from
Speaker 1: everybody else, certainly in dance, had to um, you know,
Speaker 1: apart from me having a sound on a different style
Speaker 1: of music as Yeah, I was professionally, I was on time,
Speaker 1: I worked really hard and you know, and um, it
Speaker 1: really set me apart from everybody else. That's that's what
Speaker 1: really did. So that transition wasn't r because I was.
Speaker 1: I was in the military doing that. Let it be
Speaker 1: known that Shaggy might be the first QLs guests that
Speaker 1: showed up ten minutes early before the interview started. I was.
Speaker 1: I was in a car on the way home from
Speaker 1: the night show and they're like, he's here already. I'm like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: I didn't even get to my apartment fifteen minutes early.
Speaker 1: Not not just making me do push ups. Shaggy, I
Speaker 1: always wanted to know this. Okay, So when I started
Speaker 1: to seriously DJ, especially, you know, there was a period
Speaker 1: where a lot of the I guess the w P
Speaker 1: record compilation stuff started coming out, and basically, you know,
Speaker 1: you have a kazilion um. Okay, First of all, what
Speaker 1: would I call? Okay? So if someone looks at someone
Speaker 1: in hip hop and the person that's doing the rhyme
Speaker 1: or whatever, we'll say, okay, that's the MC that the rap. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that technically you guys are DJs, but like
Speaker 1: what would you commonly call the person with the microphone
Speaker 1: in dance hall culture? Are you calling him an m
Speaker 1: C or a rapper? DJ? DJ, DJM music? Say what?
Speaker 1: So at DJ they used to call it back in
Speaker 1: the day toasting, like like the British were called toasting,
Speaker 1: But in dancehall culture in Jamaica, you say, yo, use
Speaker 1: a DJ to this day? My my nickname is DJ.
Speaker 1: And the back with the records? Who is he select them?
Speaker 1: I knew that I was just testing everybody else, right
Speaker 1: like that? Can you tell me the process, especially you know,
Speaker 1: starting in at least eight eight, when like dance hall
Speaker 1: is really really finding it's it's legs. How do rhythms
Speaker 1: get distributed, like how are you guys aware that yo? Okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's take the most infamous one, which is the
Speaker 1: slide Robbie Murdercy wrote rhythm. Yeah. Now, you know, we
Speaker 1: live in a time where you could pick up your
Speaker 1: iPhone and something goes viral. But how are people aware
Speaker 1: that there's a new rhythm ready to be like right
Speaker 1: for business in which you know, I can rhyme over
Speaker 1: this or or not toast over this? Well, well, you
Speaker 1: know that particular rhythm. A lot of people don't know
Speaker 1: that Robbie Shakespeare wasn't really on that. It was really
Speaker 1: it was really slide now just like team their team
Speaker 1: and Slide Robbie. But Robbie really didn't play bass on that.
Speaker 1: It was really it was really and Robbie has been
Speaker 1: very very close friend of mine um for years, you know.
Speaker 1: But that rhythm itself, you know, it was made with
Speaker 1: um Takademn Suppliers, and they did two songs on it.
Speaker 1: I think Pliers did Bam Bam, which was a cover
Speaker 1: of the old Twits, and then and then they did
Speaker 1: Murder she wrote, And those were the two records. First,
Speaker 1: it didn't become a riddim until after that where people
Speaker 1: slide started to make it as a ridden for other
Speaker 1: people to do and started doing different. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: just say it, you guys, because I'm gonna say for
Speaker 1: this for the folks who don't know, just tell them
Speaker 1: what the term is, tell them what the background and
Speaker 1: so like, don't you notice like sometimes you'll hear the
Speaker 1: same song, you'll see her at the same musical bathroom. Okay,
Speaker 1: everybody like kind we're not covering way back the what
Speaker 1: was the right right? And then that was that the
Speaker 1: rhythm So the wally riddon was done by Lanky Marston,
Speaker 1: who was also a protege of Slyer Robbie to be
Speaker 1: honest with you, and and Linky Marsden is one of
Speaker 1: the arrangers on this new album with Me and Stay Yeah,
Speaker 1: So he created that and did Sean Paul um Um
Speaker 1: Get Busy and all of those records and made you
Speaker 1: want to know, letting Go and all that way, so
Speaker 1: that that record that was a very popular rhythm to
Speaker 1: I'm just asking from the musical standpoint, so say, if
Speaker 1: I make a beat right, I produce something, Yeah, do
Speaker 1: I want everyone to rhyme over it, and am I
Speaker 1: getting paid like the person that does the rhythm to
Speaker 1: or whatever did dd D Like when he does that
Speaker 1: rhythm and then like thirty people are rhyming and releasing
Speaker 1: records on that rhythm. Am I getting paid thirty times?
Speaker 1: Or am I just yes you are? Okay, yes you
Speaker 1: are because because each song, each song is a new composition,
Speaker 1: so little me d oh, it is a different composition,
Speaker 1: Sean Paul um Uh, you're busy, it's a different composition.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, so there's no there's no like
Speaker 1: territorial pissing. Like I don't know, like if I made
Speaker 1: something dope like grinding by the clips, if the clips
Speaker 1: rhyme over grinding, I would figure that Pharrell wouldn't want
Speaker 1: anyone else to have that musical backdrop except for the
Speaker 1: artists the intensive. Yeah but if you, but but if you,
Speaker 1: if you in the business of money, you're gonna to
Speaker 1: happen though. Yeah, but if you're saying it like alright,
Speaker 1: you got you got sting, did every birth you take
Speaker 1: and then Puffy did it over with um miss you
Speaker 1: to say be stink got paid twice, and now you'll
Speaker 1: just sound like Mary's samples are marrying into the rhythm,
Speaker 1: so you know, it's it's the same ship, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, so if you I want that to happen. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: it's not as popular to have rhythms again as much.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not it doesn't dominate like that. It's
Speaker 1: mainly and the Internet really changed that. So you'll see
Speaker 1: people do you know, because YouTube is where most Jamaicans consume.
Speaker 1: They're they're they're streaming, so they'll be buying into these
Speaker 1: songs and it's still easy, you know, to just get
Speaker 1: into different different songs. Now, well that was my next question.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, like, I haven't seen a
Speaker 1: new rhythm since like two thousand and seven almost, it's
Speaker 1: almost like it it went out. So for you, where
Speaker 1: is dance hall culture? I have a feeling that like,
Speaker 1: is there something new that the younger generations embracing chronics.
Speaker 1: Chronics is a part of the new generation. I would think,
Speaker 1: you know, these an old soul yeah, but but but
Speaker 1: but there that's a guy where the music that he
Speaker 1: made was appealing to the young young guys, but also
Speaker 1: to older people. You know what I'm saying, people fun
Speaker 1: with chronics who are old people who were young and
Speaker 1: I'm saying but as far as that, as far as
Speaker 1: dance All now, you know, if you look at what
Speaker 1: dance all is right now, it's a different kind of
Speaker 1: a sound. But what you're with, what dance All is
Speaker 1: looking for, is that superhero star that I'm telling to
Speaker 1: really make it cool and shift it. You know, the
Speaker 1: sound might very well be there is a combination of
Speaker 1: two things, a sound, right and and the artists and
Speaker 1: the star. Because you could sing something backwards in the Hebrew.
Speaker 1: If you cool enough doing it, you're gonna grab onto it.
Speaker 1: Do you get what I'm saying? There's is there a
Speaker 1: lack of a certain type of charisma? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the same way that there will never be another Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: There will never be another print. And I'm I'm gonna
Speaker 1: break it down to you. I'm gonna tell you why
Speaker 1: I'm break it down to you. There is a lack
Speaker 1: of that because you might have somebody who's really talented
Speaker 1: but they don't have charisma. Or you might have somebody
Speaker 1: that got the charisma but he can't spit real well.
Speaker 1: Or you might have somebody that got the rism and
Speaker 1: he could spit well. For then the person's lazy ship,
Speaker 1: don't want to do no interviews, don't want to go
Speaker 1: nothing and so or you might have somebody got all
Speaker 1: of that, but they got to manage that. Just a idiot,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So when you when you
Speaker 1: look at it, if you to to get a superstar,
Speaker 1: that super you gotta have all of that line though.
Speaker 1: Take for instance, you look at Aproby, everybody say Aproby
Speaker 1: has been coming forever blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Okay,
Speaker 1: or you look at Burner Boy right now is the
Speaker 1: biggest in the world. Now if you go to like
Speaker 1: Nigeria and talk to probably the average person to be
Speaker 1: like Burnaby, that guy, you know what I mean? You
Speaker 1: not go because the same ship that go on a
Speaker 1: different day with a different artist. You know, they same
Speaker 1: ship with me shot Yang. Ain't that you know? Whatever
Speaker 1: it is? So whoever the popular one is, but what
Speaker 1: sets burna Boy apart? That's that's the guy that did
Speaker 1: the work. Because how are you gonna tell the guys
Speaker 1: in Africa? Africa is a continent. These guys are driving
Speaker 1: Lamborghinis and Ferrari. You're gonna tell him to come over here?
Speaker 1: And do Quest Love Show for free. Got it it?
Speaker 1: Take it takes. It takes a different mindset of a
Speaker 1: guy to be like, you know what, I'm seeing a
Speaker 1: bigger picture here. I'm gonna go do Question Ship free
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna and I'm gonna come from fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: early and make sure that that motherfucker's see me when
Speaker 1: he comes. I mean, and it ain't money for that guy,
Speaker 1: it's it is really a bigger picture of where he
Speaker 1: wants to go. That's that's what Bernard boy has. He
Speaker 1: that's the guy that decided that he's gonna do it. Now.
Speaker 1: What's gonna happen now is once he gets that, you're
Speaker 1: gonna see a lot of motherfucker's who was driving the
Speaker 1: car be like, you know, I want to be as
Speaker 1: big as that, Yo, he ain't ship look that you
Speaker 1: know they're going to start to work now because he's
Speaker 1: now set at that trend of what to do. You
Speaker 1: notice right outter Shaggy there was a shop Paul, I mean,
Speaker 1: and that then that because trend you noticed right after
Speaker 1: Remember what motherfucker's used to do until Jay started putting
Speaker 1: on suits, you know, and and and and put it
Speaker 1: fitted on and then motherfucker's became instead of rappers, they
Speaker 1: became wounds, you know, and remember that, and Jade came
Speaker 1: with a model. You know, you went Beyonce. I saw
Speaker 1: fit to do an interview the other day and say, uh,
Speaker 1: we know why Jay made because he signed that contract?
Speaker 1: What contract Beyonce? Because because Beyonce was this leverage. Because
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a different conversation. Now when you got
Speaker 1: Beyonce and the rule, you know what I'm saying, that's
Speaker 1: a difference. And if you if you look at the model,
Speaker 1: it became okay. So what came after that? Kanye and
Speaker 1: Kim same model? Uh, Swiss and Alicia same model? Right
Speaker 1: right now you got Cardi b and and same same model,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean it's it's been patterned because it
Speaker 1: was blueprinted by Jay, and you saw that it worked,
Speaker 1: you followed it, you know what I'm saying. And that's
Speaker 1: all we're trying to do in dance all is create
Speaker 1: that mold. They'd be like, oh, ship that's blueprinted. This
Speaker 1: mother could made that. I'm gonna funk with that. And
Speaker 1: you might do a spin off of it and ain't
Speaker 1: gotta be exactly the same way. But you know, you
Speaker 1: got something as a guide to bring you there, But
Speaker 1: making that next shaggy is more of a challenge, I
Speaker 1: think than people even know, because I was I was
Speaker 1: just thinking about this as we were talking about these
Speaker 1: other records that came out during the time when you did,
Speaker 1: like even with the Murder she Roads or uh flex.
Speaker 1: The other one thing that you have and that nobody
Speaker 1: ever did, and we don't want to admit this as Americans,
Speaker 1: is that we knew what the funk you were saying,
Speaker 1: because for like the rest of those records, we were
Speaker 1: just uh. But that was calculated. I figured it out,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I took I knew motherfucker's
Speaker 1: like reggae because they liked the cadences and the floor.
Speaker 1: I took dance all cadences. But I just spoke to
Speaker 1: Queen's English. So I put a little path word there
Speaker 1: and there. But then I made it clear enough. A
Speaker 1: lot of this one big politic when you're still young,
Speaker 1: who's gonna have their back when it's all dumb, it's
Speaker 1: all go to wait, you have that accent that is there.
Speaker 1: That was deliberate. It wasn't accident, but to the point
Speaker 1: where people question but to the point where question your
Speaker 1: validity as from Jamaican. That should kill It made me
Speaker 1: and killed me at the same time. It made me
Speaker 1: because I got every single radio my records would be.
Speaker 1: It killed me because they'll be like that ain't real Jamaican.
Speaker 1: You don't hear that mother and what I'm saying that
Speaker 1: mother game Jamaican. And I am more Jamaican than all
Speaker 1: the motherfucker's because I'm not. I'm from the gutters of Jamaica.
Speaker 1: I'm from the Jamaican. I mean I did everything Jamaican
Speaker 1: out of them. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: as history absorbs you after a while, that story wasn't
Speaker 1: shaggy though. That part of the story was never told
Speaker 1: about you because of the fact that you you skipped
Speaker 1: and went to that pop thing. So everybody who was
Speaker 1: pushing towards that director had no idea that we wanted
Speaker 1: to hear that story was necessary and I didn't want
Speaker 1: I didn't want to go Pop. I just go away there, understood,
Speaker 1: just because if you because if you think about there's
Speaker 1: another guy that was in my company. His name was
Speaker 1: Bob Marley. Noticed that Bob Marley was never played on
Speaker 1: black radio. Yes, he was played, He was played on
Speaker 1: rock radio. It's so ironic now that that Marley has
Speaker 1: now become a simple of black people and and the
Speaker 1: black struggle, but was not embraced. You're right, it's funny
Speaker 1: because it was truly black radio's fault, not black people,
Speaker 1: which my mother always makes it clear, like, don't get
Speaker 1: it twisted. I saw the documentary too, We fucked with him.
Speaker 1: Radio did not exactly exactly, so so ironic. And then
Speaker 1: what was so what was so crazy is that the
Speaker 1: Marley music that you hear now that is now the
Speaker 1: blueprint of reggae music was actually a hybrid because of
Speaker 1: because of rock. Because let me show you Chris Blackwell.
Speaker 1: To get to get reggae to be played on rock hurts,
Speaker 1: he hired session musicians to do overdubs on a lot
Speaker 1: of the original Whaler's records, created a hyper and created
Speaker 1: a hybrid. And that's how, and those records are now
Speaker 1: the blueprint of what reggae muse a kiss now if
Speaker 1: you look at it, even would Sting in the police,
Speaker 1: Sting used to idle. Stink told me this that he
Speaker 1: tried to to emulate Um. He tried to emulate uh
Speaker 1: family man and and and the winners and all of
Speaker 1: these reggae bands, and what he created, he couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: So what he ended up doing was a hybrid version
Speaker 1: of it, which became the sound of yea yeah. It
Speaker 1: became white reggae. And and and if you look at
Speaker 1: if you look at the Police, they were really the
Speaker 1: first white reggae band that's sold millions, you know. And
Speaker 1: and then and if you look at it now, at
Speaker 1: all the rest of the band, you look at you
Speaker 1: be forty. All of these bands that have sold over
Speaker 1: ten million or massive, they're all white. You before, they
Speaker 1: no doubt a base, you know, no, right even now
Speaker 1: the two biggest reggae bands is Soldier and Revolution, white
Speaker 1: reggae bants. I was with Spice and that fight she
Speaker 1: shod one one a matter of fact. Matter of fact,
Speaker 1: Bob Marley was arguably the biggest reggae artists of all time.
Speaker 1: He's only number one was I shot the sheriff. That
Speaker 1: was done by the white guy. You got to teast
Speaker 1: his master class, Shaggy Shaggy. Yeah. When when you're when
Speaker 1: you're having this initial success with with Caroline and all
Speaker 1: these hits, you know, you're you're now stepping into spaces
Speaker 1: and territories that are you know, only for you know,
Speaker 1: the elite artists. And so what's that experience like like
Speaker 1: now getting to play the stadiums and doing these shows
Speaker 1: that otherwise you know, you're not doing these like local
Speaker 1: run of the mill nightclubs and sound systems. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what. I never felt accepted. I believe that I was.
Speaker 1: I was never felt accepted in any of it. I
Speaker 1: always felt out of place. Even though I was in
Speaker 1: the room with some of these big names and I
Speaker 1: sold those numbers, I never felt like I was accepted
Speaker 1: as part of it. It was like, Okay, he's just
Speaker 1: to think, Oh, you got lucky and you're here. So
Speaker 1: even when you like, performed for Michael Jackson at at MSG,
Speaker 1: because I think he actually said I love this song
Speaker 1: I saw us about. Yeah, he said it was his
Speaker 1: favorite record. But Michael gave me a speech. Like I
Speaker 1: spoke to Michael and he gave me a speech. And
Speaker 1: when you're talking to Michael Jackson and he knows everything
Speaker 1: about your album more than you, you realized that that
Speaker 1: person is stud like he was. He was asking me
Speaker 1: about album tracks, not singles, album tracks quick backstory Mike.
Speaker 1: So Michael Jackson before streaming culture, Michael had like four dudes.
Speaker 1: Every week, like four guys would have to study every
Speaker 1: chart around the world. Yeah, and then make Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: a compilation of every top twenty chart for every country
Speaker 1: in the world. So every Monday morning, Michael Jackson's getting
Speaker 1: a new compilation of whatever is like just gotten to
Speaker 1: the top twenty and he's studying it. And if Davis
Speaker 1: Davis did the same thing, yeah, okay, and then if
Speaker 1: he likes what he hears, then he studies that artist
Speaker 1: whole history. Yeah, explains why he takes like six years
Speaker 1: between records. So he's busy. So Michael, for me, was
Speaker 1: was a validation because for one, I didn't even know
Speaker 1: the guy named my name. Imagine how shocked I was
Speaker 1: that I got the invite. I'm like, I'm Dansall, are
Speaker 1: you serious? I'm like yeah, And and and that I
Speaker 1: was gonna be on Prime Time singing that ship you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, And then he reacted out. He reacted,
Speaker 1: So that was that was a moment for me. So
Speaker 1: that was a part of the validation for me. But
Speaker 1: I think the biggest validation I got was Sting. That
Speaker 1: was that was the biggest validation for me. That like
Speaker 1: Sting restored every confidence that I was lacking. Talk about
Speaker 1: how did you guys meet? You know? Funny enough, I'm
Speaker 1: missing uh in two thousand and four and Antwerp and
Speaker 1: I jumped on stage and did um Roxane and I
Speaker 1: never saw him again in two years after um was
Speaker 1: that the police reunion? No, it wasn't produced union. He
Speaker 1: was just you know, doing no. He did rock yeah
Speaker 1: on his own. Yeah, he does that every night. It's
Speaker 1: his song, he wrote, He wrote all So it's good
Speaker 1: that Normally, normally when I see Stings, you know, I
Speaker 1: get jazzy Sting or whatever. Like he never touched you know,
Speaker 1: he's that That night he did and we ended up
Speaker 1: in Antwerp. I was on a thing called Night of
Speaker 1: the Problems with me, James Brown, sending Law, Paul point
Speaker 1: of Sister, all of us was there. It was a
Speaker 1: big orchestra thing. We were there for a month, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's when I met James Brown too, who took
Speaker 1: a liking to me and kicked my door in and
Speaker 1: gave me a full fucking sit down one evening. What
Speaker 1: was that like? He walked into my dressing room with
Speaker 1: a with a bodyguard guy behind him and and the
Speaker 1: dude that always put the thing over his shoulders and
Speaker 1: and he walked in and said and said, um. He says, sit,
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you. And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh shoot, I'm not getting like a James Brown beat
Speaker 1: down or something. So I sat. And then he was like,
Speaker 1: let me something. I'd watch you every night. I see
Speaker 1: him come, I see him go, been to your country,
Speaker 1: a part of Molly. Let me tell you something you
Speaker 1: could you the truth, you funny, you need letteracy. Those
Speaker 1: eyes and I'm looking at me and I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. They can take away your woman,
Speaker 1: your house, your car, your money. There's one thing to
Speaker 1: never take away from you your talent. And as long
Speaker 1: as you have your talent, you're a rich man. Keep
Speaker 1: doing what you're doing. God bless you. Get up and
Speaker 1: walked out. That was my James Brown, you know. And
Speaker 1: I was like, because he would because he would come
Speaker 1: out on the stage like all of us. We had
Speaker 1: these orchestras playing that would come out every now and
Speaker 1: then and play different different songs, and he would come
Speaker 1: out every time. It was my segment. He pull a
Speaker 1: chair up and he just sit down and watch Wow.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, and then I would be like Mr Mr.
Speaker 1: They would say, Mr Brown, and I'll be like god
Speaker 1: father you always and he comes in and you know,
Speaker 1: you know, it was how and that be like that,
Speaker 1: and he just really took a liking to me for
Speaker 1: some reason. I heard it was a hardass, but he
Speaker 1: was like really just a really cool guy to me
Speaker 1: for some reason. He just you know, he just liked me,
Speaker 1: you know. So we were there doing that and then
Speaker 1: Sting came in and and for one night that and
Speaker 1: we gave up the night. And that's the first time
Speaker 1: I met it. Years afterwards, Mark Kerzenbaum, who was my
Speaker 1: a n R at at Giffen when you know, remember
Speaker 1: that time when MC turned into Giffen. Remember so Martin
Speaker 1: Martin was the head of international and he was the
Speaker 1: only person that really championed my my project at that
Speaker 1: time with a sexy lady and these out records, and
Speaker 1: so I decided to say, hey, that guy championed me.
Speaker 1: I told Jimmy, I want him to be my a
Speaker 1: n R. And so Martin and I became really good friends.
Speaker 1: Martin then did Cheritary label and signed Lady Gada and
Speaker 1: l M f A oh and all of these bigger,
Speaker 1: big bit of bigger bands. And when Martin left into Interscope,
Speaker 1: he started managing Sting because he was also stings A
Speaker 1: and R for years, and he just thought he knew
Speaker 1: me and news Sting and just thought that we would
Speaker 1: get along. And I had a song called Don't Make
Speaker 1: Me Wait, and Martin says, I love that song, could
Speaker 1: you send it to me? So I sent it to
Speaker 1: him and I'm in the student l a when I
Speaker 1: sent it to him doing some ship and Stick walked
Speaker 1: in singing it and he was like, don't maybe come
Speaker 1: on shackles make to say hit And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. It was like really And we sat there
Speaker 1: and he looks at me and he says, now I
Speaker 1: want you to produce me. I wanted to be authentic.
Speaker 1: This is your this is your genre. I want you
Speaker 1: to and I'm like, you want me to produce you?
Speaker 1: What's that? I hear? He's hard to take instructions, So no,
Speaker 1: he's very easy. Is one of the easiest guys you
Speaker 1: could do. The other thing, you could realize what this
Speaker 1: thing is that when he's creating, if he comes up
Speaker 1: with something and you like it and he likes it.
Speaker 1: Just know he's doing thirty more of him and he
Speaker 1: might come back to the original. That's it might be
Speaker 1: frustrating to you that if you hear that one that
Speaker 1: you like, he's not Okay, I know you like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll put that in the pocket. Now, I got thirty
Speaker 1: more to do, right, So you gotta have patience. Dumb question,
Speaker 1: guys say, are you the first reggae artist this thing
Speaker 1: is worked with? I don't. I don't, I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't think this thing is worked with
Speaker 1: so many people, but I'm I'm the first one's out
Speaker 1: an album. Yeah, yeah, he's never he's never done a
Speaker 1: full album with anyone like that. Man do a full
Speaker 1: album together. And it was a camaraderie. We we met
Speaker 1: each other and just and just was like we had
Speaker 1: more fun than music and we just started laughing and
Speaker 1: just it just happened. We performed with each other, like
Speaker 1: I think right before the pandemic the summer before and
Speaker 1: when I got the record, I always wanted to know,
Speaker 1: why did you guys name it forty four eight seven six? Well,
Speaker 1: who was just trying to be creative. Um, what's the
Speaker 1: what's the significance behind the number? So so four four
Speaker 1: is the area? Is the is the phone code when
Speaker 1: you're in the UK press plus four plus four four
Speaker 1: and seventy six is Jamaica. So it's four or four six? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: before we close, I definitely want to get to this
Speaker 1: this new project, so comflat, like I did not see
Speaker 1: this coming now. Yeah, I'm a Sinatra fan, Like, tell me,
Speaker 1: tell me the genesis of how you came up with
Speaker 1: this idea. I'm gonna do Frank Sinatra covers. We were
Speaker 1: on tour on the four seven six to or and
Speaker 1: we had a day off and in like Norway are
Speaker 1: one of these places, and we're on the fields on
Speaker 1: a boat. Stings says, let's let's take a boat out
Speaker 1: and just hang out for the day. And then we
Speaker 1: were out there and it was me and Dominic Miller's guitarists,
Speaker 1: and we're all out there on the boat. We had
Speaker 1: drinks and everything, and then he jumped off into the
Speaker 1: water and started swimming and I was like, I knew
Speaker 1: that ship. That's just that's just cool. I'm I'm Jamaican,
Speaker 1: ain't me bro? So I just he dumped off and
Speaker 1: sing and started to swim in there him and dominate,
Speaker 1: and I said, I'm staying on the boat. So while
Speaker 1: it was out there swimming, I'm like, okay, let me
Speaker 1: put on some music. So I just put on some
Speaker 1: Sinatra because I like Sinatra, and I was raised on Sinatra.
Speaker 1: Like I said, it's Sunday music. So I just started
Speaker 1: playing it from my phone. And then Sting was coming
Speaker 1: back up on the boat and I was singing along
Speaker 1: to it, and he just looked at me and says, yo,
Speaker 1: that's your key. I'm like okay, And I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you have the same you have the same tone as
Speaker 1: as Sinatra. That's he's a base tenor you're a base
Speaker 1: tenor that's And so he's going to meet with all
Speaker 1: this ship and I'm like, all right, well, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: whatever you know. And then we started talking and he
Speaker 1: said we would be cool if we did this a
Speaker 1: reggae and blah blah blah, and all this ship. The
Speaker 1: ships stayed away to like this is before the pandemic.
Speaker 1: All is it just sit around. We ain't done ship.
Speaker 1: And then last year, at the top of the year,
Speaker 1: he looks at me and says what. The year before
Speaker 1: he says, you know, we should. He was doing um
Speaker 1: this stay in Vegas. We call it the Residences Residency.
Speaker 1: And I went out there to do to the Residency
Speaker 1: and sat and kind of jumped on stage with the
Speaker 1: night and we were backstage and I started singing the
Speaker 1: Sinatra Ship again and he's playing and ship and he said,
Speaker 1: say we should do this. I'm like, all right again,
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking nothing, and he's like, what are you doing.
Speaker 1: The top of the year, I said, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: in my AMMI. He says, let's do it. And then
Speaker 1: the top of the year he came to my house
Speaker 1: in Miami and he called me and says, hey, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do it. So I ended up flying some musicians
Speaker 1: up and we did it in my at my house,
Speaker 1: in my student in my house in Miami, and started
Speaker 1: doing it there. By the end of the week, I
Speaker 1: had like eight songs. I was like, oh, Ship, this
Speaker 1: has really happened and it really sounded it. And then
Speaker 1: we ended up going to Jamaica. Now we got like
Speaker 1: Dean Fraser, Lanky Mars. Then we got all the original dudes,
Speaker 1: we got all the backgrounds done, and then we ended
Speaker 1: up going to l a at Capitol into Sinatra's and
Speaker 1: we did like you know, the yeah, yeah we did original. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we weren't there. Yeah, yeah, it's it's trippy. It's trip
Speaker 1: the microphone and yeah, it's trippy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And so we ended up doing that and then it
Speaker 1: was Robert who had done it was good at that
Speaker 1: repertoire that Sting brought in, you know, and we had
Speaker 1: to because and most reggae records are good on two chords,
Speaker 1: you notice, and it's most reggae records are two chords
Speaker 1: and sinatras you know, four or five six chord changes.
Speaker 1: We had to figure out. The genius was how to
Speaker 1: figure it out to make it not be more jazz
Speaker 1: than reggae, because if it's two jazz, then it's just
Speaker 1: gonna be corny. And if it's too reggae, then it's
Speaker 1: got the enough jazz. So you have to take the
Speaker 1: right amount of chords out to make it work and
Speaker 1: if it strip it down. And that was experimental because
Speaker 1: if it went too much, then it it would be
Speaker 1: you know, it would be too corn if it's too much,
Speaker 1: and you know, and it became it became a really
Speaker 1: really hard process and it took Sting really hearing what
Speaker 1: he was saying. All the vocals was produced by Sting,
Speaker 1: like he sat there with me and taught me every
Speaker 1: note the piano, just like nope, nope, not that, nope,
Speaker 1: not that, nope, not you know, and really crack on
Speaker 1: me to make sure that I got Yeah, cracked the
Speaker 1: whip to make sure that I did. I did average
Speaker 1: about two songs a day. What was the most challenging
Speaker 1: song in the songbook to conquered? Luck Be a Lady
Speaker 1: was hard, because yeah, luck be a Lady was really
Speaker 1: really hard and Saturday night and I would think, I
Speaker 1: think that's life was also yeah, yeah it was. It
Speaker 1: was all right and you know it and it's it's
Speaker 1: really just he wanted it, like he says, He kept
Speaker 1: saying to me, don't do Sinatra. I don't want Sinatra.
Speaker 1: I want Shaggy. And it was important for him to
Speaker 1: get that. He said, I you're you're doing Sinatra songs,
Speaker 1: You're in the same register as in but don't do Sinatra.
Speaker 1: I want you to because I had a tendency of
Speaker 1: mimicking people, so mimics that He was like, no, I
Speaker 1: want Shaggy, you know, and he was. He is adamant
Speaker 1: about So at one point you took your trademark voice
Speaker 1: away to try to clone like Satra. No, no, it
Speaker 1: wasn't even that. I would still use that voice, but
Speaker 1: just the way Sinatra would sing it. Note for note,
Speaker 1: I was copying that, and he didn't want that. It
Speaker 1: was like, I want Shaggy. You know, it's gonna be.
Speaker 1: It's gonna you gotta bring that reggae flavor to it's reggae.
Speaker 1: I want that shaggy, you know. And he was. He
Speaker 1: was very adamant about it. I mean talking when I
Speaker 1: say every line, man, I mean, we would. He was
Speaker 1: really on it. He's and if you work with Sting,
Speaker 1: this guy is there. He's ever on time. He's you know,
Speaker 1: he's early always, you know, and he's always a beat
Speaker 1: you there, so you know, and I lived at my
Speaker 1: studio and he'll be there before I get up, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, dude, come on, man, you know I mean,
Speaker 1: and so he'll be there that challenge. Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: do it in the day, straight down and he'll buy
Speaker 1: six seven o'clock will stop. And that's how we worked
Speaker 1: every day. It was never a late night nothing by
Speaker 1: seven o'clock. We would probably go, you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: meet him at the bar by eight or something by
Speaker 1: nineties like okay, I'm going to be you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? That's always would I have like a glass
Speaker 1: of wine or something like that. How did you get
Speaker 1: your name? Ship? Because because you can that curled pattern
Speaker 1: is undefined. Let me tell you. Let me tell you
Speaker 1: something I was. I was skinny and I had a
Speaker 1: lot of hair, and they call me shaggy dog, shaggy
Speaker 1: dog and the dog not even like yeah, And then
Speaker 1: I went to England and found out that Chad meant
Speaker 1: something else. Yeah, I was like like that ship cool man.
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, I'm like, oh, ship, that's that's what
Speaker 1: it means. Almost the love of love of shore shooting
Speaker 1: a mirror. If not in the Rock Roll Hall Fame,
Speaker 1: we need the Rock Roll Hall of Fame. We need
Speaker 1: to Trinity Center honors. So boom BASTI. I mean, just
Speaker 1: tell us about how your life changes when you have
Speaker 1: a huge record. I signed I did All Carolina. It
Speaker 1: became number one in the British chart. It was massive,
Speaker 1: like and it was number one and almost so and
Speaker 1: Kim Berry signed me, who was the co founder of Virgin.
Speaker 1: Kim Berry had signed that record, and I was in
Speaker 1: a bidding world with Chris Blackwell and Kim Berry. Now
Speaker 1: I wanted to go with Ireland Records because that's where
Speaker 1: all my reggae heroes work. And and and Susan Newman,
Speaker 1: who was Chris black Cloth right hand and me. You
Speaker 1: got really really friendly. She she she really loved me.
Speaker 1: She picked up from the airport. She would rock with
Speaker 1: me all the time. So I really wanted to be
Speaker 1: on that label. I was friend with a patche Indian
Speaker 1: at that time. Him and I used to hang out
Speaker 1: in London and he was on that label. So I
Speaker 1: really wanted to be on that label. And I was
Speaker 1: driving to go sign a a deal memo and my
Speaker 1: manager got a call from ken Berry offering me a
Speaker 1: million pounds at that time in which is on Earth,
Speaker 1: and I think Chris Blackboard was offering me something like
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty to two thousand pounds bullshit money, And
Speaker 1: I went there. I was like, okay, can you match it?
Speaker 1: And Chris was like, well, you know, it's a little
Speaker 1: bit too rich for me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I've never paid that much for Regyards. I'm not about
Speaker 1: to know he paid four thousand dollars for the mark
Speaker 1: for the so anyway, so I'm just I'm just letting
Speaker 1: you know. So um him. So I went with ken
Speaker 1: Berry because he he gave me a bit of offer.
Speaker 1: And then when it happened, Old Carolina happened. You know,
Speaker 1: I did Bombastic, And when I did Bombastic, it came
Speaker 1: out and debuted at number one. The first date was
Speaker 1: out and it was the first time in reggae or
Speaker 1: dance all the history that any reggae dance a record
Speaker 1: with debut on the Goodish chart at number one. And
Speaker 1: ken Berry called me and he says, Shaggy, congratulations your
Speaker 1: number one. I'm like, what's number one? The song? I said,
Speaker 1: we just put it out. He says, yes, the debut
Speaker 1: at number one. He says, wow, he says, and then
Speaker 1: he says, I wonder what Chris would be thinking now.
Speaker 1: And I said, and I said, I said, well, you know, Chris,
Speaker 1: you know, he said, you know, he couldn't. It's reggae
Speaker 1: was gonna make that much money. He says, funny should
Speaker 1: say that I made my million back on Old Carolina.
Speaker 1: It was top five in every country. This is just
Speaker 1: this is just the bonus debut at number one, and
Speaker 1: it was the first time in the history. And the
Speaker 1: crazy part about it. When I was doing that record,
Speaker 1: I was in a car driving to the HCNF studio
Speaker 1: in Long Island and I had to track on I
Speaker 1: had to track on a cassette and it was cassette
Speaker 1: back in the days, and I'm playing it and all
Speaker 1: I could do or like, like, the only vibe the record,
Speaker 1: the song gave, the beat gave me was just moaning.
Speaker 1: I just kept moaning on the record. I moaned the
Speaker 1: whole drive. I just whoa ro mhm lovell love fall ROA.
Speaker 1: And so when I got to the studio and staying
Speaker 1: international put it up on on on the table, you know,
Speaker 1: I just went around there. I just started moaning fun
Speaker 1: fustic roa. And then he thing looked at me and said, yo,
Speaker 1: my funck. He got with some lyrics of that ship.
Speaker 1: But I like what you're saying with you and it's
Speaker 1: a smooth jostle saw fun And those records were freestyle.
Speaker 1: I never wrote those records. I just it was started
Speaker 1: from moming wait wait, I the irony of you telling
Speaker 1: the story because even in the story of Let's Get
Speaker 1: It On. Yeah, and this really circle because the version
Speaker 1: of Let's Get It On that we know was a
Speaker 1: freestyle because basically the moment he saw Jan Hunter walk
Speaker 1: in the room, he was showing off and he freestyled. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The original Let's Get It On, it was like a
Speaker 1: political song. It was like, yeah, like let's let's organized,
Speaker 1: let's get it right. Yeah, but crazy part. Crazy part though,
Speaker 1: I did those moaning not on the on because the
Speaker 1: Marvin Gay version that you know of Let's Get It
Speaker 1: On that is on Bombastic was a remix, so that
Speaker 1: the rich the original, which was big in every other
Speaker 1: country except the United States. I should know this. The
Speaker 1: Marvin Gay versions that you know happens to be only
Speaker 1: in northern in America. That's it. In every country in
Speaker 1: the world, the original is the hit record. So when
Speaker 1: you perform it, you do what's version depending on America. Yes,
Speaker 1: in America, I use the Marvin Gay. Everywhere else in
Speaker 1: the country, I go to the original reggae version, which yeah,
Speaker 1: well wait, since you told that story, then I need
Speaker 1: to know did you ever find out what Virgin thought
Speaker 1: once you went to two m c A with it?
Speaker 1: It wasn't mean, because I'm almost certain that they said
Speaker 1: like okay, well, so ken Berry, who is of course
Speaker 1: the head of the Virgin, ended up moving on. There's
Speaker 1: the craziest thing. After that, I got that record. I
Speaker 1: ended up to Maxey Priest's album at that time, and
Speaker 1: we did that Girl, which was also a top five
Speaker 1: record right stat and then and then I put another
Speaker 1: record out and and it came up the same day
Speaker 1: Princess Diana died and they just stopped playing records. They
Speaker 1: just played Candle in the Wind on every radio station.
Speaker 1: You're right, and and and so and so my record
Speaker 1: tanked and my album tanked. And there's a guy that
Speaker 1: was the head of the record company, ken Bury. It
Speaker 1: now moved on to running you know, because he had
Speaker 1: success with Me and Letting Kravitz and Janets, so he
Speaker 1: was a big wig now. So they ended up running
Speaker 1: em I, the w E am I, And there was
Speaker 1: a guy called Paul Conroy who became the president, and
Speaker 1: he just did not know what then to do with me.
Speaker 1: It's like his dance solid and so they dropped me,
Speaker 1: and they dropped me and Maxi and signed the next
Speaker 1: dance All Sensation at the time, which was being a Man. Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: at the same money they dropped me, they signed Being
Speaker 1: a Man and they were trying to get it's out
Speaker 1: of in and out of sitting there trying to did
Speaker 1: the Maya record. A couple of those records was going
Speaker 1: Patrick Moxie who was the father of Day right, he
Speaker 1: was at pay Day. He ended up being the head
Speaker 1: of uh, the head of A and R at that time,
Speaker 1: and running Virgin at that time and the whole Janetan
Speaker 1: and he put Being a Man with Janet Jackson all
Speaker 1: that ship. So it was so crazy about that is
Speaker 1: in the time that was going on, jam and Lewis
Speaker 1: decided to do a project for How Stella Got Her
Speaker 1: Groove back? Yeah, and they they did the soundtrack and
Speaker 1: so al right, here the here the crazy part. Now
Speaker 1: Terry McMillan, who actually the story was about, who was
Speaker 1: the writer and she she did the story of autobiography
Speaker 1: about herself and her court and of this guy and her.
Speaker 1: He told Terry Lewis that you gotta get Shaggy on
Speaker 1: that soundtrack because me and my man used to fuck
Speaker 1: to that Boom Bastard record and Jamaican that iss tr
Speaker 1: fucking story, and that's how Terry Lewis came to New York,
Speaker 1: found me and say, Shaggy, I want to play a track.
Speaker 1: And the track had boy I love you so and
Speaker 1: I just started. When he started playing, I was like
Speaker 1: a wood a man, aalode to make him moisten, wed
Speaker 1: old amnalode, to make him own, and said sweet Suckerlington
Speaker 1: filed to clear. And he's like, oh ship, oh ship,
Speaker 1: And I'm just in awe because I'm in Jimmy jam
Speaker 1: and Terry fucking Lewis like like, what the fuck. And
Speaker 1: Terry was like, oh man, you should ship ship. Oh ship.
Speaker 1: He called Jimmy because Jimmy was He called Jimmy say,
Speaker 1: oh man, you need to hear this ship. This is
Speaker 1: my fucking ship. He was like. And then he started
Speaker 1: playing a bunch of records and it got like Mary J.
Speaker 1: Blige and Casey Jogian Boys the Bend and fucking prints
Speaker 1: and all that. I was like, oh ship, my record
Speaker 1: is gonna make it. That's it. And just so what happened.
Speaker 1: They ended up putting the soundtrack out because at that time,
Speaker 1: when the movies came out, you put the soundtrack out
Speaker 1: without and say and you put the soundtrack out and
Speaker 1: radio just out of just started playing the track with
Speaker 1: me and Janet. But we didn't have single rights that song,
Speaker 1: so he couldn't be We couldn't, So we ended up
Speaker 1: shooting a video. Eventually the record stop blowing up and
Speaker 1: I was just going from station to station working it,
Speaker 1: and then we ended up doing a video. But when
Speaker 1: I did a video, now, if you look at the
Speaker 1: video online, you will see that Angela Bassett and Whoopie
Speaker 1: Goldberg's or who was singing the hook Janet was it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we couldn't get it. We couldn't get it, They
Speaker 1: wouldn't and I was a little reggae guy, was a
Speaker 1: major major pop stars. They were virgin Patrick Moxy wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna get give her to me either at that point
Speaker 1: because he had just dropped me, dropped me and side Beanie.
Speaker 1: Now I catched this fucking record, and it was like,
Speaker 1: I ain't giving you Janet that you don't meet men
Speaker 1: meant doing a join with Janet with the Neptunes exactly,
Speaker 1: which that's sold a little bit him so right right,
Speaker 1: I mean, and the and the Neptunes did that ship
Speaker 1: and they spent two million on video on the old
Speaker 1: Ship and my Ship became number one. And then right
Speaker 1: after that, the next record that really popped up for
Speaker 1: me was was it Wasn't Me? And then I was off,
Speaker 1: Yeah it was off? Was that another kind of like freestyles?
Speaker 1: It wasn't Me? Was that? What was that? It wasn't me?
Speaker 1: It wasn't Me? I got from UM. I was watching
Speaker 1: UM Yeah, Eddie Murphy, I was watching Raw. Yeah it
Speaker 1: wasn't Me. Yeah, Yeah, and I saw that and I
Speaker 1: was I was like, Yo, that's the song, and I
Speaker 1: just we just cultivated from RAW. I saw Eddie in
Speaker 1: Bahamas told him because we was back to say, I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, you know, I took that whole
Speaker 1: ship from it. Is that the motherfucker me? Roy? I
Speaker 1: knew he was at this point, Shaggy, I know the
Speaker 1: answer to you feeling like you're getting your flowers from America.
Speaker 1: I feel like you, I don't know if you I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that that's like not as much, but I wanted
Speaker 1: to know how do you feel about getting your flowers
Speaker 1: from the folks in Jamaica, Like do you feel at
Speaker 1: this point that they are you respected as a legend
Speaker 1: that you are and it felt like that why you
Speaker 1: do because if you're doing a spicy record, I felt
Speaker 1: like that was a beautiful kind of wrap around, like
Speaker 1: they respect you, you respect him? Or or is that
Speaker 1: just it's been a journey. It's been a journey from
Speaker 1: me being starting at dance hall, then becoming pop and
Speaker 1: then not having no respect at home to me doing
Speaker 1: a song called Church. I literally got off Geffen to
Speaker 1: do dance All if you if you remember quest the
Speaker 1: record called all of them, so all of them up
Speaker 1: with with with Olivier, with Olivia. I ended ended up
Speaker 1: doing that record, even though the record company didn't want
Speaker 1: me to do that record, because I wanted to do
Speaker 1: Dance you know what I'm saying, And I knew that
Speaker 1: I had to get back into dance All to get
Speaker 1: the street back. And then right after that, when it
Speaker 1: put it out, it didn't do very well because they
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do with it, and then they
Speaker 1: dropped me. And right after they dropped me, I wrote
Speaker 1: Church Eathen, which was a massive nineteen weeks number one
Speaker 1: in the dance hall, and then just overnight everybody in
Speaker 1: the streets started sucking with me. And then and then
Speaker 1: the Prime Minister at the time, Porshea Simpson was a woman.
Speaker 1: She was the first woman running for for for prime
Speaker 1: minister and and and she ended up using strength of
Speaker 1: a Woman as a theme song, and every little ghetto
Speaker 1: kid was singing that ship and that became massive. And
Speaker 1: then I ended up doing my charity concert, which was
Speaker 1: Shaggy and Friends, where I raised money for the bust
Speaker 1: of Manda Hospital for children, you know, and I had
Speaker 1: everybody from Lauren Hill to fucking voice them into everybody.
Speaker 1: Sting was the last person that did it. And I
Speaker 1: done that. So it became a respectful thing after a while,
Speaker 1: where people be like, Okay, just do is a truth.
Speaker 1: I'm funking with him, you know what I mean? And
Speaker 1: that became that. And so it became that, and I
Speaker 1: had the respect of Jamaica, but I didn't have the
Speaker 1: respect of the industry. The industry was still like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this guy isn't authentic. And and that came in part
Speaker 1: with with Sting saying, you know, this guy is a
Speaker 1: genius or as as he would put it on on interviews,
Speaker 1: which blew my mind because I think of him as
Speaker 1: like a musical genius god. But he would have these
Speaker 1: conversations like I've never seen anybody writes songs as fast
Speaker 1: as this guy and does it and he doesn't play
Speaker 1: an instrument, and it's always and it always freaked him out.
Speaker 1: He always says, I don't understand how you're so melodic
Speaker 1: and don't play you know, It's just it's all in
Speaker 1: your head, you know. And I will sit around a
Speaker 1: mic and freestyle. Could we come from that and spitting
Speaker 1: these melodies and ship like that and we go down
Speaker 1: the road right Larry side and be like okay. So
Speaker 1: he would get that, So he validated me on that level.
Speaker 1: This true validation comes now from the Spice record, which
Speaker 1: I wrote, you know uh and got was a shaggy
Speaker 1: record first, and I literally took it and flipped it
Speaker 1: to the Spice and then we put Sean Ball on it,
Speaker 1: and that became not just a massive record on the
Speaker 1: global side of things, but it all had a big
Speaker 1: tiptalk record, but it was the streets and it was
Speaker 1: produced by me. It was but and then and then
Speaker 1: there were other things to life. For instance, Cartel did
Speaker 1: Slow Motion Um, which was a record what was one
Speaker 1: of his first big records, which which I produced and
Speaker 1: put on my label. You know what I'm saying and
Speaker 1: and and and you know, because I went there and
Speaker 1: took his voice and everything and got it, got it done.
Speaker 1: And there's so many other reggae records, dance all records
Speaker 1: that I've done that were big that people didn't know
Speaker 1: I wrote, but I wrote, you know, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: talking hardcore ship like Chico. If you don't care, member,
Speaker 1: see you what you on it out of the air.
Speaker 1: Probably amount of money that all of these ships, MAXI Priests,
Speaker 1: um whatever your eyes can see. All these records were
Speaker 1: records that were streat records that I I either wrote
Speaker 1: or produced. And then so after whild people just started
Speaker 1: to be like, okay, yeah, alright, what him? Well that
Speaker 1: was actually my question, So thank you. Is there anything
Speaker 1: that you have yet to achieve? Like because I know,
Speaker 1: like you know, over achievers might necessarily feel like there's
Speaker 1: one more it's they gotta scratch and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And I know that even for us, like we've had
Speaker 1: the same journey where you know, our audience who does
Speaker 1: not look like us, embraces this ship out of us,
Speaker 1: and you know, but we long for our hometown. Are
Speaker 1: our people to really embrace this, which I feel like
Speaker 1: you know, with this next project we're doing, We're gonna
Speaker 1: get that moment. But yeah, no, you you answer the
Speaker 1: question to me, would would you? And I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: give this for you. When I remember sitting with your
Speaker 1: van and I was I was talking I think it
Speaker 1: was your trumpet player or something. I was talking to
Speaker 1: it and we're talking about UM, just how this gig
Speaker 1: that the the late night game affected your whole ship,
Speaker 1: and he was like, it's a different thing. You know,
Speaker 1: we got we got dental and medical, I got the
Speaker 1: best team in the business. Bro. Yeah, And I'm it
Speaker 1: dawned on me at that point. I was like, wow, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's some real ship you could and and what
Speaker 1: you have done with the platform. You know, even when
Speaker 1: I was so I think I saw you and just
Speaker 1: telling you how genuinely happy I was to see you
Speaker 1: win UM at night, even though it was really crowded
Speaker 1: with that bullshit that happened. But you know, but you
Speaker 1: I was just really because I kind of know your journey,
Speaker 1: you know, you know and and and I know even
Speaker 1: some of it even true Scott, because when I was
Speaker 1: in Miami with Scott and just kind of see how
Speaker 1: the whole ship go and just know your journey being
Speaker 1: on an m c A and just to see what
Speaker 1: you have done with the platform. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: it is it is just commendable and I just want
Speaker 1: to take that time on to say, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, it has not gone unnoticed. Thank you. Man, dude,
Speaker 1: this is this has been I'm not blowing smoking whatever
Speaker 1: like and I'm not even trying to trying to kick
Speaker 1: it like, oh well a little expectation, no, but man,
Speaker 1: like you, I need to. I gotta tell the world
Speaker 1: like you are. You're a historian, like right now, history
Speaker 1: and misinformation is like for me, that's like almost job one,
Speaker 1: like uncovering history, making sure that you know, we we
Speaker 1: know our culture and that finding Grio's finding Grio's exactly.
Speaker 1: So this this is a very important episode of course,
Speaker 1: Love Supreme, and I thank you for doing this for us, man,
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. I appreciate it having Feronticcolo Sugar, Steve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm paid Bill this Love Supreme. Another classic under the Bus,
Speaker 1: under the Hood and the Notch. I don't know, like
Speaker 1: the Proper Club. What should I say, Steve, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm you know. Shaggy is a Christmas album yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a Christmas album of dancing. Because when we were young,
Speaker 1: all we all we got a Christmas was that Bing
Speaker 1: Crosby Christmas record, and my grandmother killed me with that ship.
Speaker 1: And it was like, I'm like, and ain't nothing Bing
Speaker 1: Crosby singing Ain't nothing was looking like because I'm in Jamaica.
Speaker 1: There's no wit no, you know what I mean, there's
Speaker 1: no there's no kind of class and chimney, there's no
Speaker 1: none of that. It don't look like my Christmas. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to do an album that looked like how
Speaker 1: my Christmas Christmas, which which was ragging up in Chris
Speaker 1: Christmas in the Islands, and those songs that's on that record.
Speaker 1: And I got from Neo to to Ding Dong to
Speaker 1: Junior Reid to Bound to Killer, everybody else singing Bound
Speaker 1: to Killer beat him out. Everybody shouldn't see uh. All
Speaker 1: of them is on this record singing all versions of
Speaker 1: our dance of Christmas records, Christmas songs. You know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it ain't Mariah carry Ship, but you know you can't
Speaker 1: do it. We can smoke do it. Brother, Thank thank
Speaker 1: you man, I appreciate you for doing this. The salad
Speaker 1: and talking to us so much. Man. Alright, alright, we'll
Speaker 1: see all the next go around, of course. Sup What
Speaker 1: above Supreme is a production of I heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.