REGGAE SUPERSTAR Shaggy is the 'Featured Artiste of the Month' on Yahoo.com's 'Launch' music website (www.launch.yahoo.com).
In an exclusive interview with 'Launch', Shaggy says; "I think it's a great time right now to be a reggae artiste. I sit down and I look and I see what's happening to Beenie Man. I see how my former label is, is the budgets that they're putting on this guy is amazing. I was like, God, you know we accomplished something, you know what I mean? Now Beenie Man is getting the same respect and the same kind of opportunity that any other genre of music. The bonus is, I would I say, is because of the Hotshot situation and you just gotta be happy for that, straight up. Because now it looks like we are gonna be a force to be reckoned with... and it just makes you feel wonderful that we have actually just broken this barrier down and got some sort of respect. And to finally do it where they're actually investing into this genre of music. It's good being a reggae artiste, everybody is opening to it... it's like, 'I guess it's fine to put a couple of dollars into these artistes, and market them because, well, Shaggy did it... Boy did he do it. You know talking 10 million records. You talking a genre of music that they probably wouldn't think to sell like how many records..."
Shaggy in the interview also continued to say "You know I wanted to be different when I came back out, but I wanted it to still feel like Shaggy and it should feel like you're going through different styles of music, but at the same time, maintaining the reggae core... that is important, because you have all these genres of music that's somewhat kind of fused together with this reggae vibe to give it the 'Shaggy' sound and will maintain the Shaggy sound.
"I've never been an artiste that's been sold on my image. You know, it ain't like a ton of money was spent to get me on milk cartons or whatever... I think I'm musically driven, things happened because I just had some 'bad' songs that are not just hit records but they're huge hit records and that kind of got me to the status of where I'm at with 10 million sold. I don't have no personal trainer trying to tell me to get 'buff'. You know, this is my vibe, it's all about me and how confident I feel and... I ain't dressing up to get up there and please for any particular reason, it's basically for my own confidence and if I feel good about it then I roll with it, you ain't buying me, you're buying my CD. So hey, if you don't like how I sound then, I kind get with you on that."
The site is also promoting the October 29 launch of Shaggy's next album, Lucky Day as well as offering the chance to pre-order the CD.
