In a recent interview, Shaggy surprised fans by revealing his true voice and acknowledging that he had accentuated his Jamaican accent for his music career.
After turning eighteen, the 55-year-old international dancehall sensation—real name Orville Richard Burrell—moved to New York City with his mother. He was born in Kingston, Jamaica.
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His real voice astonished a lot of his admirers who had never heard it before when he posted a portion of a recent interview on his TikTok over the weekend.
Shaggy also disclosed the background behind his well-known accent, which he adopted as a joke to make fun of his drill instructors.
Using the same voice he used for songs like Boombastic, he said, ‘I got this voice by mocking drill instructors in the military. Because in the Marines, the drill instructors would go, “Yeah boy, drop and give me 20, let’s go.”
‘And I would mock him as a form of joking because it motivated, you know, your platoon,’ he conceded.
The “It wasn’t me” singer, ‘I just sang that song in that voice because, you know, that… it sounded cool,’ alluding to Oh Carolina, his breakthrough single that broke through the dancehall charts in 1993.
‘Oh Carolina blew up and now I’m faced with the situation that I’m gonna have to sing every song like that,’ he noted.
The dancehall performer continued, mentioning additional tracks like Big Up and Mampie from his 1993 first album Pure Pleasure, ‘sung in a different voice than Oh Carolina,’ adding it’s ‘not the same tone.’
Several admirers expressed amazement on TikTok, one of whom went by the handle DJ and left a comment on the video, ‘So we all just hearing shaggy real voice for the first time?’
Nick, a different enthusiast, stated, ‘That’s Shaggy’s government voice???’ as one more TikTok user stated, ‘Uh uhh’ stated, ‘Shaggy being military explains wasn’t me.’
Elle Michelle commented, ‘Damn Shaggy really said, “It wasn’t me”’ while another user stated, ‘shaggy’s real voice. had no idea!!’
Shaggy has received two Grammy Award wins—one in 1996 for Boombastic, Best Reggae Album, and another in 2019 for 44/876 with Sting—out of seven nominations.
He has 16 studio albums to his credit, the most recent of which was Com Fli Wid Me in 2022. It’s unknown if he is currently working on any new projects.
