It wasn’t the me-aning.
Shaggy, 54, told People that fans have long misunderstood the sentiment behind his 2000 sing-along smash hit “It Wasn’t Me.”
“It was a giant misconception with that song because that song shouldn’t be a cheating song. It’s an anti-cheating song. It’s just that no one listened to the record to the tip,” the Jamaican reggae rapper claimed last week.
The song starts with singer Rik Rok telling Shaggy that his girlfriend caught him cheating with the girl round the corner.
Rik Rok then asks Shaggy for advice on what to do. He suggests his pal deny wrongdoing.
“But she caught me on the counter (It wasn’t me) / Saw me bangin’ on the sofa (It wasn’t me),” the lyrics go.
Shaggy told People: “There’s a component within the record where it’s a conversation between two people and you’ve got one guy, which is me at that time, giving that bad advice, like, ‘Yo, bro, how could you get caught? Just tell her, ‘It wasn’t me,”’ he explained.
“After which at the tip, the guy says, ‘I’m going to inform her that I’m sorry for the pain that I’ve caused. I’ve been listening to your reasoning, it is not sensible in any respect. Going to inform her that I’m sorry for the pain that I’ve caused. You would possibly think that you simply’re a player, but you’re completely lost.’”
Shaggy claims “no one hears that part” and just sings along to “it wasn’t me,” thereby missing the intended meaning.
“It’s an anti-cheating song,” he continued. “Nobody ever really buys into that, and I keep explaining it to people. Then, they go hearken to it back and be like, ‘Oh dude, I totally missed that.’”
The Post has contacted a rep for Shaggy for comment.
“It Wasn’t Me” was the primary single on Shaggy’s fifth studio album, “Hot Shot,” in 2000.
It’s his highest-charting song thus far in several countries, including the US, in addition to the best-selling single of 2001 within the UK, selling over 1.15 million copies.
