Shaggy still a Hot Shot.. 20 years on from big hit
SHAGGY, the artist also known as Orville Richard Burrell, celebrates his 30million-selling career this week with the release of Hot Shot 2020.
The album, featuring remakes of his signature songs It Wasn’t Me and Oh Carolina, marks 20 years since he released his chart-topping, Grammy and Brit award-winning fifth album – the first Hot Shot.
And last year Shaggy, 51, proved his talent hadn’t cooled off when he added to his Grammy collection with an award for his 2018 collaboration with Sting on their album 44/876.
The pair may seem an odd couple but they’ve been big friends for years. “We’re both Libras, we both have women, wives, who are in film,” Shaggy explained. “We both drink the same kind of gin, love hybrid styles of music, are humanitarian and love reggae music. So we connect on a lot of levels.”
Of course 2020 has not turned out as he had planned. The singer has only just returned to his family in Jamaica after getting stuck in New York’s lockdown for two months en route from his UK tour.
He said: “The Covid came in and made you realise you’ve got to enjoy the simplest things in life, your family, your surroundings, all the things that make you stop and smell the roses.”
With an early lockdown and nightly curfews, Jamaica has fared better than many places so far during the pandemic. Shaggy said: “People are practising way more social distance in Jamaica than I’ve seen anywhere else.”
Commenting on the country’s lack of Black Lives Matter protests, he added: “Let’s face it, George Floyd didn’t happen in Jamaica. If it did I’m sure these rowdy Jamaicans would have totally taken to the street.”
Hot Shot 2020 includes two new covers – of Eddy Grant’s Electric Avenue and the late, great Wailer Peter Tosh’s marijuana anthem Buk-In-Hamm Palace, a song dear to his heart.
“The original was done with Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, a very close friend of mine, and in Jamaica I live four houses down from where Peter Tosh lived and died.It was a rebellious song that really didn’t get the light of day, but to me it was a hit.” l Hot Shot 2020 is out today.