Shaggy Goes To Bat For Spice

Shaggy, the Grammy Award-winning hitmaker who Dancehall artist Spice credits with being a mediator between herself and VP Records, says all he did was create a win-win situation for the parties involved.

Over the years, Spice’s relationship with the record label —to which she signed in 2009—has been rocky, and the So Mi Like It deejay has been very vocal about it. But with a July 30 date set for the release of her debut album, TEN, and the buzz around her single Go Down Deh with Shaggy and Sean Paul, everything appears to have been ironed out.

Shaggy, speaking as a guest on Let’s Connect with Ambassador Marks—a monthly chat series forum in which Jamaica’s Ambassador to the United States Audrey Marks updates members of the Diaspora on what is happening in Jamaica—said a lack of good representation resulted in a one-sided agreement in the Spice/VP Records arrangement.

“Spice has been very verbal over the years of her arrangement with VP Records. And you know, VP is like any other record company; if she doesn’t have representation, they are going to give you a contract that is in their favor. It is up to you to have your lawyers, your counsel, to basically say, ‘Hey, I’m going to mark it up, and we’re gonna push back.’”

“If there is no one there to push back, then it’s going to be a one-sided agreement, and that’s what it was—a one-sided agreement because she wasn’t properly represented at the time,” Shaggy, whose real name is Orville Burrell, said.

He said, too, that in fairness to VP Records, it took a conversation to come to a solution.

“I don’t think she had the team at the time to have the conversation, and sometimes to have the artist have the conversation, especially if you are an emotional artist like Spice, that conversation won’t go well,” the It Wasn’t Me artist continued.

Shaggy shared that, in researching Spice’s songs after she came to him to do a song, he realized that, despite all the work she has done, she had never put out an album.

“And on the agreement at VP, every single record that she has put out on her own, they also have rights to, under that contract. So whatever it is that they paid her in the initial contract, they have made that over 10 times fold already,” he explained, adding that all he then had to do was go in there and say, “Let’s create a win-win situation”.

“I happen to find a situation where all parties would win, and VP was very open with it, and we sorted her contract out and started to create a product,” Shaggy said, adding that he knew she had the potential “because I saw the stardom in her”.

The Boombastic singer, who is the executive producer for TEN, then went to bat for the Queen of Dancehall, saying that she is hard-working and ambitious and that he saw the hunger in her.

“She wants to get to that next level, and she wants to change the cycle of things also, so we agree on a lot of things,” Shaggy said.

The Ranch Entertainment CEO even called out the hypocrisy of some corporate sponsors who might shy away from collaborating with the dancehall deejay due to the nature of her lyrical content.

“I spoke earlier about some of the major family brands that may not want to get on board because of her content,” he said, adding that Magnum—a grass-roots, “in the streets” brand that is about that kind of content—saw its sales triple after the LHHATL star became an ambassador for the tonic wine.

“Let’s look at somebody like Cardi B, which is basically having the same content as Spice, she is just a Hip Hop artist, and at the end of the day, Pepsi is using her for Super Bowl ads, people are buying into her every day, brands are rocking with her,” Shaggy insisted. “So let’s not be hypocritical here and sit down and be judging at the end of the day.

“I know there is a lot more to Spice. Here we have made a record [Go Down Deh] that is a really clean record, a very fun record, very dynamic record. It showcases the culture of Jamaica, it showcases the culture of dancehall, and we have jumped out the box in a major way, and we are now having the industry of music, all eyes are on us, at this present time,” Shaggy said.

He said he is looking forward to her album, explaining to Ambassador Marks that Spice signed a production deal with him.

“I co-write with her, I write some of the songs, I produce songs, and I work with the team at VP [Records] and give them whatever expertise I have,” he said, adding, “we’ve come together and collectively, I brought some people from my team and some from theirs, and we created a synergy that has obviously worked, and we are doing incredibly well at it.”

Shaggy was the special guest for the chat series, which was hosted Thursday night under the theme “Monetizing Our Culture”.