Shaggy‘s Boombastic gets a cameo in Season 5 of Netflix’s The Crown. In the intro to episode 8 titled “Gunpower”, there is a historical recollection with the BBC’s Board Of Governors acknowledging that the Royal Charter has been confirmed for “another ten years.”
The Royal Charter is the constitutional basis for the BBC, and it is an instrument that sets out the public purposes of the Corporation, and “guarantees its independence as an instrument of education and entertainment” first declared in 1927.
The opening scene transitions to the late Queen Elizabeth, in her living room in the 1990s being convinced by a young Prince William, that the new Satellite television technology does not run antithetical to her duties as the Head Of State, and merely watching does not constitute an act of treason.
The episode surrounds a BBC interview with the late Princess Diana and the role the Corporation plays in British society over the years.
Using Chekhov’s Gun dramatic principle that says “every element in a story must be necessary”, the episode ends with Willam using a remote control to browse channels on the television to Her Majesty’s discomfort.
On one of the channels was Shaggy’s Boombastic. She then asks that William find the BBC where the programming was befitting her tradtional taste.
The 1995 album of the same name won the Grammy award for Best Reggae Album in 1996.
Robert Livingston, Shaggy’s then manager and producer of the track told World Music Views how acceptable the world was to Jamaican music at the time;
“When Boombastic was number one on the British Chart I had 4 different No. 1 records at the same time,” he explained to WMV News.
The rock infused track saw successes in Ireland, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia, where it topped the singles charts. It spent a week at number one on the US Billboard R&B chart, and reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100.
Part of Boombastic’s success was due to its involvement in a Levi’s commercial which became popular in key music markets. The claymation commercial featured the song playing as a man used the core of his Levi’s jeans to save a woman from a burning building, and they both swing on a makeshift zip-line into each other’s arms.
Shaggy told WMV last year May that his music catalogue out-syncs all artists from Jamaica.
“My catalogue does very well. My syncs do better than any other reggae artists including Bob. We just did Cheetos, Chase. But I have partners because when I came out the only way to get on the radio is to have samples. We did covers and samples and whatever was needed to get on the radio. So I share revenue with them even though the catalogue makes money, I have partners,” he said.
Boombastic has been certified in several countries including Australia : certified Platinum (70,000), Austria certified Gold (25,000), France certified Gold (250,000), Germany certified gold (250,000), New Zealand certified Platinum (10,000), Norway certified Platinum (10,000), and in the United Kingdom where the song first took off it is certified Gold for selling more than 400,000 units.
Other notable movies to have featured Boombastic include the George of the Jungle (1997), After the Sunset (2004), the animated film Barnyard (2006), and Mr. Beans Holiday(2007),
