Shaggy Says Prince Harry Sang ‘It Wasn’t Me’ When They First Met
It seems even England’s royal family was impressed with Shaggy’s mega hit, It Wasn’t Me. At least Prince Harry was, according to Shaggy, who revealed that the prince sang the summer anthem to him when they first met.
Shaggy made the revelation to the Guardian’s Observer Magazine. He explained how they came to meet and the circumstances surrounding the prince’s impromptu mini-performance.
“When Prince Harry came to Jamaica, he came to visit the Bustamante Hospital for Children. My daughter thought he was supposed to be a prince on a horse, like in her storybook. He turned to me and said, ‘Wow, she’s just so not impressed,’ and then he sang, ‘It Wasn’t Me’. So Prince Harry is a Shaggy fan!”
The song is still considered one of Shaggy’s most successful and helped him break into the global market of music. It’s the first single from the Jamaican-American artiste’s multi-Platinum studio album Hot Shot (2000).
The song features vocals Rikrok as well and, as of 2017, had sold over 1.42 million copies, which suggests it’s an extremely popular song in England.
Shaggy, whose real name is Orville Richard Burrell, supports the Bustamante Hospital for Children in Jamaica through his Make A Difference Foundation. The Foundation hosts his Shaggy and Friends Concert to raise funds with the first being held in 2009.
The event was then staged one year later in 2010, but it was later decided that the concert would be staged every two years because of Shaggy’s hectic schedule. The concerts were held in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018. However, none was held in 2020, more than likely because of restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a recent documentary by VICE, Shaggy revealed that the song was mostly disregarded by MCA Records and almost didn’t even make the album, but he was able to persevere and get it on. In that documentary, he also explained a bit about his thinking behind the creation of the hit.
“My aim was to write adult content without being explicit. You have to have enough English in the song to grab people. Now you need to bring it back to the authenticity, straight hardcore Dancehall… The concept of the song is: this guy is in problems. I am the little devil player, saying: ‘It wasn’t you.’ The record is basically saying that it’s not good to cheat, a moral conversation as Sting would say,” he explained.
It Wasn’t Me definitely introduced the world to Shaggy and the unique sound of Jamaica as the song topped charts in Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Poland, the United States, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom during its heyday.
Shaggy also spoke about being given the opportunity to play at the Queen’s 92nd birthday party at the Royal Albert Hall. He joked that he hoped the Queen was a fan: “Afterwards I was standing right beside her. It would have been crazy if she was like, ‘Hello, Mr. Boombastic.’”