Shaggy has been such an unwavering global presence in music that it’s hard to believe he’s just unveiled his first album of new, original, non-holiday music of the decade.
Lottery, which arrived on May 15 via a partnership between VP Music Group and his own Ranch Entertainment, finds the Grammy-winning dancehall legend proving he can still toast with the best of them four decades into his storied career. Shaggy began working on the 13-song set “around seven or eight years ago,” but his attention kept getting diverted to new opportunities.
At the turn of the decade, Shaggy stepped in to help straight out dancehall queen Spice’s VP Records deal, ultimately signing on to executive produce the Grammy-nominated record. Titled 10, the star-studded project also spawned “Go Down Deh,” an international smash collaboration between Spice, Shaggy and fellow Jamaican crossover sensation Sean Paul that’s collected over 103.7 million official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate. By 2022, Shaggy teamed up with longtime friend and collaborator Sting for Com Fly Wid Me, another Grammy-nominated record that found the Kingston-born superstar reinterpreting the Frank Sinatra songbook in a reggae style. The following year, Shaggy tapped soca sensations like Kes, Bunji Garlin and Patrice Roberts for his genre-blending In the Mood EP.
