In today’s instalment of Ask Shaggy, we have a letter from RikRok, in Jamaica… “Dear Shaggy: I was recently caught red-handed by my wife, creeping with the girl next door. Picture this, we were both butt-naked, banging on the bathroom floor…”

It Wasn’t Me, by Shaggy (his 3^rd of four #1s) ft. RikRok

1 week, from 4^th – 11^th March 2001

Ricardo ‘RikRok’ Ducent is in a bit of a pickle alright. How could I forget that I had given her an extra key? he asks, hand to forehead. Shaggy is not in the mood for sympathy however, offering blunt advice: deny everything. To be a true player you have to know how to play, If she say a-night, Convince her say a-day…

Caught on camera? Heard the screams of passion? Marks on your shoulder? The evidence of her very own eyes…? It wasn’t me. It’s not hard, nearly a quarter of a century on, to read a sinister subtext to this well-remembered chart-topper. It’s pure gaslighting, and not something you’d be allowed to get away with in the year of our Lord twenty twenty five.

But. At the same time, this is such a silly song, the situation so preposterous, Shaggy at his most cartoonishly alpha (especially in the video), that you cannot take it seriously. The idea that his advice will work is never supposed to enter the listener’s head. And at the end of the day, morality wins out, with RikRok deciding to ignore the advice and apologise: Gonna tell her that I’m sorry for the pain that I’ve caused, I’ve been listening to your reason, It makes no sense at all…

Compared to his two earlier hits, this is a much more pop-infused reggae than in ‘Oh Carolina’ or ‘Boombastic’. And in comparison to those hits, Shaggy is not the main attraction. Most of the story is carried by RikRok, with Shaggy delivering his two verses as the devil on his shoulder (in his trademark deliciously thick patois). But the move into pop paid off, as this was Shaggy’s first big hit in over half a decade, and the year’s biggest seller. (As well as becoming the decade’s highest-selling song not connected to a TV talent show!)

It wasn’t even supposed to be released as a single, but Shaggy and his record label were convinced after a radio DJ obtained an illegal copy of the song from Napster – nice period detail, there – and it became his most requested song. The single had a full four-month build up period before being released, and smashed in at number one with sales well over a quarter of a million.

And you have to admire Shaggy’s limpet-like ability to weather changes in style, to go for years between hits, and to still re-appear at the top of the charts every so often. In fact, 2001 will go down as his most successful year by far, with one further massive number one hit to come soon. Maybe this just proves, once and for all, that reggae is the one genre which will never truly die.