Shaggy Explains Why It Was Important To Fix Things Between Spice And VP Records

Now that Dancehall legend Shaggy has fixed things between VP Records and Spice, she will finally release her debut studio album TEN next month.  Although many are curious to know what was the issue, Shaggy has explained why it was so important to repair the relationship between the reigning Queen of Dancehall and Jamaica’s biggest record label. 

While speaking with the folks on the Breakfast Club this week, both Shaggy and Spice opened up about the matter. Spice revealed that she grew impatient with VP and added that they just weren’t seeing “eye to eye”.

“The problem was, I couldn’t even understand it so when they explained to me ‘oh we did a body of work and we need to get clearance and certain paperwork is difficult’ … I don’t wanna hear it. I just went blank. I can’t understand why it’s taking so long, 10 years is a long time… as an emotional woman, I just stopped corresponding,” Spice said.

As she declared today, everything Queen Spice has accomplished in her career so far has been singlehandedly orchestrated by the one-man-show that is herself, Grace Hamilton.

“I just start putting out my own projects, I start becoming my own producer, I start doing everything by myself…We [Spice and VP] just never saw eye to eye and I just started doing my own production, putting out my music, promoting myself on Instagram,” Spice frankly admitted.

Shaggy, the executive producer of Spice’s highly anticipated upcoming project, interjected to divulge another problem. He pointed out that not only was Spice young at the time of signing with VP Records, but she was also void of proper legal representation.

“I think it was a communication problem going in, she was representing herself … In the initial stage of her deal, I don’t think she had proper representation, cause she was young,” Shaggy said.

As we previously reported in May, the It Wasn’t Me hitmaker took the matter into his own hands and went to VP Records directly to discuss how they could fix things.  “In fairness to VP, they were willing to come to the table because they realized her value at the same time” Shaggy went on.

However in “restructuring” the deal, VP agreed that Shaggy would do a record with Spice. This, Shaggy said, was a win-win situation for all the parties involved and that was how he was able to move things forward.

It was important, to him at least, that Spice stick it out with VP Records.

The independent Caribbean-owned record label is known to be the largest Reggae and Dancehall label and publisher in the world. So to truly represent the genre, an all Jamaican-Dancehall roster was necessary, Shaggy said.

“They [VP] are important and this is why this project is so important and this is why we had to do it like that. You look at Go Down Deh for instance, if we had done say for instance the song with Buju and Khaled … if that record had happen and become a massive massive number one hit, you’d hear ‘oh it’s the Khaled factor.’ If the Skillibeng record had blown up, you’d hear it’s the Nicki factor … and this has been going on over and over again for Dancehall.

“We needed a record that the factor was Dancehall, so you had Shaggy, Sean, Spice – three Jamaicans, three Dancehall artistes. The video director, the video is doing incredibly well, is Jay Will, a Jamaican video director and a record company that is a Jamaican record company.”

“For us to have a better part of the market share and have some clout in this game, we had to do this on our own. So this was important for us to do on our own,” Shaggy reasoned.

The Big Ss, as they call themselves, have already hit some of the biggest international television shows to promote their single Go Down Deh. These included Good Morning DC, Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Wendy Williams Show, Pix 11 News, and the Breakfast Club so far — a strategic move Shaggy says, which is to send the message that it’s all Dancehall, because there are too many factors taking away from the genre.

See why Shaggy says current dancehall artists are trying to fix something that wasn’t broken and watch the rest of the interview on the Breakfast Club here –