Songoftheday 6/30/22 -Honey came in and she caught me red-handed creeping with the girl next door, picture this we were both butt-naked banging on the bathroom floor...

 

 

"It Wasn't Me" - Shaggy featuring Ricardo "RikRok" Ducent

from the album Hot Shot (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 23

 

Today's song comes from Jamaican-American reggae singer/toaster Shaggy (aka Orville Burrell), who after being an underground artist on the scene in the early 1990s broke through worldwide with his international hit two-for-one single "Boombastic" and "In The Summertime", which made the American pop top ten in the summer of 1995. A year later, Shaggy returned to the pop top-40 as a featured guest on Maxi Priest's single "That Girl". 

However when it came time for Virgin Records to release his next album, Midnite Lover, in 1997, the short-lived reggae boom was waning, and the lead single from the record, "Piece Of My Heart", which interpolated the Erma Franklin soul classic made famous by Janis Joplin, stalled down at #72 on the pop Hot 100 chart in America, and #57 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart. However his international profile was kept alive by making the top ten in the UK (#7) and New Zealand (#6). In 1998, he had a high-profile collaboration with Janet Jackson on the song "Luv Me, Luv Me" from the movie How Stella Got Her Groove Back, but somehow that stiffed down at #76 on the pop airplay and #44 on the R&B airplay charts, since it wasn't allowed to be released as a single by Jackson's camp. It would be re-released with Samantha Cole and became a decent international hit, but by then the time had passed in the States. Virgin, thinking Shaggy was a one and done, let him go. 

Shaggy signed on with MCA Records for his next album, Hot Shot, which came out in the summer of 2000. The lead single from the set was the denial track "It Wasn't Me", featuring singer Ricardo "RikRok" Ducent. RikRok would handle the verses of the song, explaining how his woman caught him outright cheating in different scenarios, with Shaggy providing advice to just deny, deny, deny. It's a funny song done in a not-cheesy way, and the storyline was easy enough to follow that the track hit old and new fans hard, and became the biggest single of his career, carrying on a legacy that people still know to this day. Written by Burrell and Ducent with producer Shawn "Sting" Pizzonia and Brian Thompson, the record defied genre to rule the airwaves in the beginning of 2001. The music video expands the plot into a whole chase scene, which is weird because like how is this going to be the next time he sees her? Just break up with her, dude!

Anyhoo, "It Wasn't Me" went all the way to #1 on the American pop Hot 100 in Billboard in February of 2001. The song spent a week at #3 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart, and topped the Rap Songs list for two weeks as well. On the radio, the song topped both the mainstream top-40 and the dance-oriented Rhythmic format charts. Internationally, the single topped the charts in Australia, Belgium, Croatia, France, Ireland, The Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom, with it being the biggest single of 2001 in the UK. The Hot Shot album, released in August of that year, spent six weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and five weeks on top of the R&B list, going on to sell over six million copies and was the second-top album of 2001 in the US. At the Grammy Awards in 2002, "It Wasn't Me" was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Collaboration, losing out to another #1 hit, the remake of "Lady Marmalade" from Christina Aguilera, Pink, Mya, and Lil' Kim. Both Shaggy and the album will be back to the series.

As for RikRok, he only appeared on the charts one more time, also a guest, on the singer who was on Shaggy's other #1 hit "Angel", Rayvon, for the 2001 single "2-Way" which also featured Shaggy, which was a minor R&B hit at #87. 

(9/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's Shaggy and RikRok appearing on the British music show CD:UK...

Next up, the pair performing at the Michael Jackson tribute concert in 2001...

 

The duo also teamed up at the Billboard Music Awards in 2001...

And lastly, Shaggy performed the song acoustically with Sting and Dominic Miller...

Up tomorrow: Rap duo address an ex-mother-in-law.