Shaggy Wanted To Return With Different Sound

09/15/2002 10:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Mark Armstrong

(9/15/02, 10 a.m. ET) -- It is not a coincidence that "Hey Sexy Lady," the first single from Shaggy's Lucky Day, due out on October 29, does not attempt to recreate the same vibe of his monster hit "It Wasn't Me" that helped catapult his 2000 record Hot Shot past the 10 million sales mark.

The Kingston, Jamaica native wanted to return with a different sound that still incorporated various elements of his style. "I wanted it to still feel like Shaggy. I wanted to come with a record that people couldn't figure out. But it was so great, in your face, that you couldn't figure out what it is, but it's just Shaggy, just in your face, had the same tongue-in-cheek vibe to it. And I'm up to my same old nasty tricks. So, it's all good, walking that borderline. So, I still wanted that vibe."

Shaggy added that he did not want his first single to be a collaboration with another big-name act. "I knew I wanted to be different when I came back out. I didn't want a situation that I was going to do a combination record where it's a duet with some other huge artist because I just thought that everybody was doing that, and people were expecting that because we sold 10 million records. We had all this money now, so we could hire like, I don't know, Jennifer Lopez or whosoever, you know, do a record with her, you know?"

Instead, the pulsating, club-friendly ode to attractive women features Brian and Tony Gold, and is Number Two on Billboard's Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart.

-- Billy Johnson Jr., Los Angeles

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