Apr 30 2012.
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I first met Shaggy on Friday (April 27) afternoon. Unfortunately the organizers gave us only fifteen minutes to interview him despite the fact that we were print media sponsors of the event!
When first asked what he had planned for Sri Lanka he replied with an extremely serious look on his face, “I have brought 3D glasses for everyone and I’m going to be playing my latest p*rno.” Noticing the look on our faces he added, “I am joking! In all seriousness the last time I performed in Sri Lanka was 10 years ago and as far as I know there is no party like a Sri Lankan one so I am just looking forward to having a good time.”
I asked him why he calls himself Mr. Boombastic. "I never actually called myself that. People started calling me that after I released the song. They even used to call me Mr. Carolina and Mr. Angel but those sounded weird so people stuck with Mr. Boombastic."
Many of you wouldn't know this but Shaggy was once a part of the Marine Corps of the United States. He said that even while serving with the marines he used to perform occasionally but after sometime he got sick of military life and decided to become a full time performer.
Many of us who are big-time fans of Shaggy know that his song “Fired Up (F%*$ the Recession)” which he sings with Pitbull is by far one of his most politicized ones.
When asked as to why so many artistes including himself like to collaborate with Pitbull and why he created a song like “Fired Up” he laughed and replied, “Pitbull is my neighbour so he comes around pretty often and I practically create a new song with him everyday. We just liked this song so we went ahead and made it but we never released it officially; it was just put out there. I hear it’s a big hit in Sri Lanka.”
Shaggy, being one of the few reggae artistes to break into the big music scene, says the only way to survive is not to get bored with your chosen musical genre.
Shaggy Live
The party started at 5 pm on Saturday 28 April with some energetic local acts The Sheriffs, Natasha Ratnayake and the ever popular duo Bathiya and Santush along with Umaria, Ashanthi and Randhir who had the crowd of over 7500 on their feet!
The wait was finally over when Mr. Lover was finally on stage and the crowd went completely berserk! The concert was top notch. Shaggy, even after being in the industry for over two decades has clearly not let the years take their toll on him; he was more energetic than ever because he performed for 2 hours!
What was fantastic about the concert was the fact that Shaggy was touring with his whole band and therefore it was pretty obvious that no recorded music was being played. An added surprise to the audience came along when Shaggy began to dance to some good old Sri Lankan papare music.
Songs such as Angel, It Wasn’t Me, Dame, Fired Up and Mr. Boombastic had the audience going completely bananas!
I’m pretty sure anybody who lived within a 5 km radius of the CR&FC Grounds heard the 8000 screaming fans.
There was only one glitch in the show and that was the abrupt ending.
By Reihan Stephen
0 Comments
Niranjala Perera says:
May 02, 2012 at 06:21 pmHey I would have loved to have been there I saw him perform the first time he came it was at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium he really knew how to keep the crowd going. But sadly enough and much to my surprise I too was told by one of my friends who was at the concert about the abrupt ending, what happened does any one know why he just walked off stage like that. He was so polite and courteous last time what on earth happened to the guy.