declared May 19 \u201cShaggy Day\u201d<\/a> in Brooklyn. \u201cBut coming off \u2018Go Down Deh,\u2019 the building was very excited about putting out a new record, so everything fell into place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tBoasting a star-studded lineup of collaborators, including Robin Thicke, Jeremih, Dexta Daps, Sting and Anthony Hamilton, Lottery<\/em> is a convincing return to form for Shaggy. He honors his sound system roots with \u201cTil A Mawnin,\u201d delivers a sly sequel to \u201cIt Wasn\u2019t Me\u201d with \u201cBun (She Love Me),\u201d and even links up with new-school talent like 450 on the infectious \u201cWe Love Di Gal Dem.\u201d Perfectly sequenced for the pre-game, main fete and post-party wind down, Lottery<\/em> is the culmination of four decades of Shaggy betting on himself \u2014 and coming out on top every time.<\/p>\n\n\tBelow, Shaggy breaks down his new album, reflects on Flatbush\u2019s glory days and dishes on delving further into the acting world.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat was the last song you added to the track list? Why did it make the album feel complete?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tThe opening track, \u201cGod Is Amazing,\u201d was the last record added, not because I didn\u2019t want it \u2014 it was done earlier \u2014 but because I didn\u2019t want it on the album without the right sound. I had other singers on the hook, but the feeling was missing.<\/p>\n
\n\tThere\u2019s a young lady named Vanessa Amarosi, whom I came across while watching her sing Annie Lennox\u2019s part for a Eurythmics set at Night of the Proms in 2024, and she\u2019s so dynamic. I didn\u2019t even know she was a big singer in Australia, but I was taken by her massive voice. I got friendly with her and her manager, played her the record, and she called me back the next morning with her recording. She cut it in the bathroom of her hotel. She just went into full church mode on it, and that made the album complete.<\/p>\n
\n\tWas it always meant to be the opening track?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tNo. But after Vanessa\u2019s vocals came in, the whole team was like, \u201cThis is what you should start with.\u201d And then [acclaimed Jamaican dub poet] Mutabaruka was on there, so it just felt like something to open it. It\u2019s almost like praying before you go on stage.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen and how did you land on the album title?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tNormally, when I\u2019m doing an album title, I look at the tracklist and see what title fits the story of each record. I also knew I wanted it to be one word, like Boombastic.<\/em> If you listen to the song \u201cLottery,\u201d it\u2019s probably the most shallow song on the album, but in the context of the title, there were ways I could spin it.<\/p>\n\n\tIn the music business, there\u2019s no clear-cut way to success, so it\u2019s really like playing the lottery. It\u2019s like gambling at this point, but I\u2019ve always bet on myself because there was no record company when I started that was thinking of giving dancehall artists a marketing budget. There was nobody before me having that kind of success. In the early stages of my career, the label would always fight everything that I put forward.<\/p>\n
\n\tFor instance, \u201cMr. Boombastic\u201d was the B-side to \u201cIn the Summertime,\u201d which [the label felt] was a more popular record. I had done \u201cOh Carolina,\u201d and there were a bunch of big records at the time using a similar beat to Chaka Demus & Pliers\u2019 \u201cTease Me,\u201d so the record company wanted me to do so as well. In hindsight, I probably should have, because I would have made money, but I was young and a creative, so Sting International and I brought them \u201cMr. Boombastic\u201d instead. I was labeled as being difficult, and the compromise was making that song the B-side. And then \u201cMr. Boombastic\u201d became the bigger record worldwide.<\/p>\n
\n\tThere\u2019s a lot of Bill Withers on this album. Why was he such a major influence on this album?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tWhen Sting and I did the 44\/876<\/em> tour [in 2019], we would freestyle for soundcheck. He\u2019d start playing different bass lines, and sometimes we\u2019d end up on a Bill Withers song because we\u2019re both big Bill Withers fans. When he asked me to do Sinatra songs in reggae, he taught me how to sing. I wasn\u2019t confident enough to say that I was a singer.<\/p>\n\n\tHe would play every note on the keyboard, so I could hear what I was supposed to be hitting. That challenged me vocally because I couldn\u2019t hear those in-between notes normally. Dancehall is two chords, and now I was dealing with six, sometimes seven chords. Sting taught my ear how to pick up on that, and my confidence started building.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen I was doing this album, I decided to flip \u201cAin\u2019t No Sunshine\u201d into reggae as we did with the Sinatra records. I sent the demo to Sting, and he added a harmony that changed the color of the whole thing and made it so great. And when we went to clear things with [Bill Withers\u2019] wife, she was so gracious and lovely.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhy did you tap Dexta Daps for \u201cDancehall Nice?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tThe world has not yet seen what Dexta can really do vocally. He does things in the studio where I\u2019m like, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you let people hear this?\u201d But he doesn\u2019t want to blow up too big too quickly, and I get where he\u2019s coming from. You get a hit record, and the leeches come. And you can tell he\u2019s an emotional guy, so he knows his limitations and boundaries.<\/p>\n
\n\tYou\u2019ve scored three Rhythmic Airplay hits from this album \u2014 including \u201cLooking Lovely\u201d (No. 32, with Robin Thicke) and \u201cBoom Body\u201d (No. 28, with Akon and Aidonia) \u2014 that began with \u201cTil A Mawnin\u201d reaching No. 35. What does that kind of longevity mean to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\t\u201cTill A Mawnin\u201d was a huge tribute to Henry \u201cJunjo\u201d Lawes, who\u2019s arguably the main architect of dancehall. He started to have artists toast on reggae beats, and all the early Yellowman and Eek-a-Mouse records were done with live bands. It wasn\u2019t until King Jammy came in and started to program music with Steel & Cleavy that things changed. I don\u2019t think Junjo even knows how much of an architect he was at the time. He was just a dude that had a lot of ideas and a great ear and knew how to surround himself with great artists.<\/p>\n
\n\tI actually got a little bit of pushback from Sting [on this song] because the hook wasn\u2019t something he was used to. But he did it for me, because it\u2019s me. And once he heard the final version, he knew I made the right choice putting him on the song. It was so authentic to how reggae singers do it. And it was actually Sting\u2019s first time being on a Rhythmic [Airplay] chart, so I was proud.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhy is it important for you to continue upholding sound system culture?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tI started DJing sound systems in Brooklyn, and that\u2019s where I learned my artistry, my stage performance, how to freestyle and how to read an audience. Me and Super Cat used to be running around Flatbush all the time.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s crazy because Flatbush is getting so far removed from that time.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tYou had Starlight Ballroom, but the most gunshots used to be inside of Biltmore [Ballroom]. I remember one night I was crawling on my belly after some shots got fired, and Cat was on the ground like, \u201cDi one time mi decide fi leave my gun, they go shoot up di place.\u201d It was early days, bro, we were all risking our lives for dancehall.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat\u2019s it been like stepping into the theater world?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tI learned that Sting is always right \u2014 and he\u2019d take joy in hearing that! [Laughs<\/em>.] He wrote the part for me, and even though it wasn\u2019t something I was super interested in, he convinced me to try it. It\u2019s not something I thought I would be doing at all. But it\u2019s amazing how, after learning my lines, doing live theatre and getting standing ovations, it\u2019s really become second nature, and I can make it my own.<\/p>\n\n\tEven when I got the movie role [in Amazon MGM\u2019s upcoming Honeymoon with Harry<\/em> dramedy], I thought we weren\u2019t going to do it because they were shooting at the same time I was doing The Last Ship<\/em> in Australia. But it turned out they were shooting in Brisbane! So, I would do the play at night and film my parts for the movie in the daytime. I\u2019m actually going back in two days to finish.<\/p>\n\n\tWould you want to do more movies in the future?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tIt all depends on how I\u2019m feeling. I will probably have to get an acting coach to take it more seriously now that I\u2019m in it. I also got really friendly with Kevin Costner, who gave me a lot of pointers. I had movies when Hot Shot <\/em>was hot [in 2000] and roles that I turned down. I even turned down my own television show because I was doing things in dancehall that had never been done, and didn\u2019t want anything to derail me.<\/p>\n\n\tReally and truly, I just had idiot management around me. I was young as hell and could\u2019ve done both. That\u2019s why it\u2019s very important to have experienced people around you.<\/p>\n
\n\tWould you want your own biopic?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tProbably not. There\u2019s this old saying: Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Maybe if I\u2019m dead, they\u2019ll do one; it wouldn\u2019t matter to me after that.<\/p>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.billboard.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shaggy has been such an unwavering global presence in music that it\u2019s hard to believe he\u2019s just unveiled his first album of new, original, non-holiday music of the decade. Lottery, which arrived on May 15 via a partnership between VP Music Group and his own Ranch Entertainment, finds the Grammy-winning dancehall legend proving he can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2433251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[357772,310971,21800,355368],"class_list":["post-2433250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-dancehall","tag-genre-rb","tag-music","tag-reggae"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Shaggy-on-\u2018Lottery-Album-New-The-Last-Ship-Musical.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2433250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2433252,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433250\/revisions\/2433252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2433251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2433250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2433250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2433250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}