That unmistakable raspy voice is replaced with a slow, clear and calm demeanor. The confidence of Mr. Lover Lover, Mr. Boombastic, is replaced with uncertainty. Uncertainty of what’s next in the career of Shaggy.
Shaggy’s latest album, Clothes Drop, released last Tuesday, failed to crack the top 50 on Billboard in this its opening week, making it his second straight album to have such little impact on the charts.
This wasn’t Shaggy trying to mask his emotions with his wit and charm, like he’ll do these next few weeks, promoting the album during television interviews and appearances. This was the real Shaggy, Orville Richard Burrell, wondering how to save this album from becoming another flop.
“The music will save me,” he says.
“The music will save me,” he repeats, “because the music always saves me.”
He cites Hotshot as an example. Record companies lost faith in the album when it was released in 2000, he says. Then radio DJs began playing “It Wasn’t Me” and turned it into a hit with no promotion. Same thing he says happened with “Angel.” The album has sold a staggering 10 million copies worldwide.
His follow-up, 2002’s Lucky Day, sold about 350,000 copies in the U.S. Shaggy blames it on bad timing. MCA, his label at the time, folded shortly after the release, so he says they were unable to market and promote it properly.
Now signed to Interscope, Shaggy has faith that the quality of the music will make Clothes Drop a success. The music may have to drive this album, he says, because he isn’t feeling the power of the record label.
Labels will only put money behind a song that they think will do well at radio, and he thinks they didn’t have faith in his first single, “Wild 2Nite,” a “harder” song featuring Olivia of G-Unit.
“So they’re going to wait until you come with a song that they’re going to think is a hit and then they’ll hit the machinery,” he says, sitting in the green room of the Tonight Show, about a half hour before he performs the single in front of Jay Leno. “But I haven?t felt the machinery from my side.”
But he has felt his label’s presence.
In an interview with andPOP last summer, Shaggy spoke as if he were uncertain the album would ever come out.
“I’m just not pleased with a lot of things I’m doing.” he said at the time.
He now explains that the “trying process” he spoke about was battling with his label. He would present a song to them, and they would suggest changes, so he would scrap the song and move on until they found a song they both thought was good enough for the album.
The process took two years, and 56 songs were recorded. But in the end, Shaggy says he is happy because he didn’t have to compromise, from his standpoint.
“Every song on this is dope in whatever arena I aim for,” he says. The follow-up to “Wild 2Nite” may actually be two tracks?Ultimatum, which would be released to pop radio, and Broadway, which would be released to the urban stations.
The Kingston, Jamaican-born artist, who turns 37 next month, has been signed to five labels, which means his projects have been overseen by five record label heads, yet nobody who has been in his corner, he says, perhaps until now.
Interscope head Jimmy Iovine has been “very supportive,” even arranging collaborations on his album with Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas and Nicole from the Pussycat Dolls. But he’s going to withhold his final judgment until he sees the “machine” in full action.
“You’re looking at a guy who doesn?t hold a lot of record company people’s words in high regard,” admits Shaggy. “Maybe he does mean it, but for me, I’ve been bitten too many times so it’s hard to swallow.”
So if Shaggy has never been with a record label he has liked, why does he keep signing with different major labels and not just start his own?
“You still have to go through one of the big distributions. And it?s the same headache. It’s a sad sad situation.
“We’re slaves,” he continues, in the same breath.
“If you download music now, the majority of the music that is downloaded, record companies still take the same cut as they do on the manufactured CD. That?s wrong. Somebody needs to point that out. When you look at a manufactured CD, they take 80 per cent of your shit, because of the fact that they do manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and artwork. When you download music, all that is eliminated, so why are they taking the same split?
“The record company was designed for the artist to lose. And it’s such a monopoly that you can’t do anything about it. You can try to do independent deals but it won’t work for an artist like me who’s a worldwide artist because you’re going to need to be in every single country in the world to make your statement.”
Shaggy is hoping the U.S. Congress recognizes this situation.
“Congress could do anything they damn wanted to do at this point. If Congress could put Microsoft in a neck hole, they could do anything to the music industry.”
And as he tries to revitalize his career, he’s still looking for respect. Critics have wondered in recent years how much of an impact Shaggy has had on the mainstream reggae and dancehall scenes in North America; more specifically, whether or not guys like Sean Paul and Elephant Man would have their success without Shaggy’s influence.
To his credit, Shaggy has never brought up the topic of respect. But when asked about it, he doesn’t hold back. A U.K. publication asked him earlier this month if he thought he deserved more recognition for the impact he has had worldwide. Shaggy said, yes.
Whenever the reggae scene is criticized for its controversial, and sometimes homophobic, lyrics, Shaggy says they use him as an example to contradict that impression. When nothing is wrong though, he doesn’t hear his name.
“Once you become that commercial, you’re no longer cool,” he says, explaining to andPOP his theory as to why he rarely gets recognition. “You’re no longer hip; you’re going to get resentment. It’s sad but that?s how it is. Bob Marley went through it.”
But does he care?
“I’m not sitting here fighting for any kind of recognition because what I’ve done is on record. Whether or not people want to give me that respect or not, it doesn?t matter to me at this point. I would like to think I’m a part of it, the part of development of this music and where it is and where they?ve gotten, but if they don?t give me that, then it’s no big deal.”
And so he waits. Without a hit single, the album won’t sell. Without a hit single, he won’t be able to tour. Without that hit, he’ll be heading back into the studio, starting the whole “trying” process again.
But he’s not ready to give up on this album. He says he’s optimistic that the next singles will work. Shaggy is not at war with his label; he’s just waiting for them to make their next move. But it’s the music, he says, that will make this album a hit.
“Record companies will never save me; the music will save me.”
Listen to Wild 2Nite:
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