On Saturday, May 18, 2024, “It Wasn’t Me” by dancehall star Shaggy, featuring singer RikRok, officially surpassed 1 billion streams on Spotify. This achievement marks the first time a song by either artist has reached this milestone.
Shaggy becomes the third Jamaican solo artist with a lead single surpassing a billion streams, following Omi’s “Cheerleader” and Sean Paul’s “No Lie” featuring Dua Lipa.
The multi-platinum hitmaker told WMV on Saturday that he is pleased to see the song achieve the milestone after 24 years. “When you look at a song released so long ago and it’s still doing numbers in this era, it is something to be thankful for,” Shaggy said.
The certified smash hit “It Wasn’t Me” earns more than 400,000 streams per day on Spotify. It was first released to contemporary radio on November 7, 2000, as the second single from Shaggy’s album “Hot Shot,” following “Dance and Shout.” This track marked Shaggy’s major breakthrough in the U.S. pop market, becoming his highest-charting song to date. Its success was propelled by Hawaiian DJ Pablo Sato, who, after being denied a copy by MCA Records, downloaded a bootleg mp3 version from Napster and played it on the radio.
Before Pablo Sato played the song, a discouraged Shaggy started his promotional album tour on the U.S. East Coast, where only a few hundred attendees showed up at his concerts. Shaggy recalls the intense pressure on his career before the DJ discovered the song and fans embraced it: “We were gonna be dropped.”
However, everything changed dramatically in his favor as radio stations across the U.S. began playing “It Wasn’t Me” repeatedly. The star’s next show erupted into pandemonium. Sales of the “Hot Shot” album soared, reaching 500,000 copies sold each week, and it quickly topped charts in every country where it was available.
“It Wasn’t Me” dominated the Billboard Hot 100 chart, holding the number one spot for two weeks in February 2001 and remaining on the chart for 25 weeks. The song also reached number one in 11 other regions, including Australia, Belgium (Flanders), Croatia, Europe, France, Ireland, the Netherlands (Dutch Top 40 and Single Top 100), Poland, Scotland, and the UK (Singles and Hip Hop/R&B charts). Additionally, it topped the U.S. Billboard Hot Rap Songs, Mainstream Top 40, and Rhythmic charts.
It was the UK’s best-selling single of 2001 and of the 180 singles in UK chart history to have surpassed one million sales, “It Wasn’t Me is the 49th best selling single in the UK of all time and currently certified quadruple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry for selling 2.4 million combined in sales and streams as measured by the Official Charts Company as of April 2023.
“You have to strategically write these records because you are worried about airplay,” Shaggy told Vice about the highly suggestive song.
Elements from the the comedic lyrics in “It Wasn’t Me” were inspired by Eddie Murphy’s comedy special Raw (1987), with songwriters Shaggy, Brian Thompson and RikRok creating a two sides scenario where RikRok seeks advice from Shaggy after being caught cheating by his girlfriend. Despite clear evidence, the advice is to deny everything, encapsulated in the phrase “It wasn’t me.”
It includes an interpolation of the War song “Smile Happy” and has subsequently influenced tracks like Liam Payne’s “Strip That Down” and it is sampled on the reggaeton song “China” by Anuel AA, Daddy Yankee, Karol G, Ozuna, and J Balvin.
The accompanying music video, directed by Stephen Scott, depicts the song’s narrative, featuring RikRok seeking Shaggy’s advice and subsequent escape antics.
The producer of the track, Sting International, who also has a writer’s credit, said, “Nobody could see this record. We played it for everybody, they just didn’t see it.”
The song has since sold 2.2 million units in streams and sales in the U.S., according to Luminate, and it is now eligible for 2x Platinum Certification in the U.S. by the Recording Industry Association of America.
“We made something so special the world had to stop and take notice. It’s like, who the f_k are these Dancehall guys?” Shaggy said, laughing, in the VICE documentary marking the 20th anniversary of “Hot Shot,” which coincided with the release of Shaggy’s remake, “Hot Shot 2020.”
The Boombastic singer explained the reason for re-recording of the classic album in a Voice Online interview saying, “Universal approached me in trying to do a 20th anniversary album and they made me an offer where we would be able to share ownership of the masters, where they would swap out the old master for the new masters. I thought it was a good deal so I solicit my in house producer Sting International and he and I had a falling out and he kinda just went with the hard drive so I ended up doing a new deal with them.”
Shaggy’s latest project is “Move” featuring Lavinia produced by Romanian hitmaker Costi Ionita (Go Own Deh, I Need Your Love).
Watch Shaggy perform the song below:
