Because it’s 2018 and all bets are off, rock legend Sting has joined forces with ‘It Wasn’t Me’ hitmaker Shaggy to record an album.
Dubbed 44/876, the ‘island-influenced’ LP will be released on noneother than 4/20 (i.e. April 20th) for optimum dankness.
Speaking in a recent feature in Rolling Stone profiling the collab, Sting admitted that he’s been getting off on how gobsmacked everyone is by the musical odd-coupling.
“The most important thing to me in any kind of music is surprise,” The Police man explained. “And everybody is surprised by this collaboration – by what they’re hearing. We’re surprising.”
So how the hell did this even happen? Sting’s manager, Martin Kierszenbaum, is apparently to thank/blame.
Kierszenbaum also happens to be Shaggy’s former A&R exec, and he showed Sting some in-development Shaggy songs, which impressed Sting so much that he decided to gatecrash one of Shaggy’s recording sessions, and the rest is history.
The album that they created together reflects the duo’s mutual love of Jamaica – “its music, the spirit of its people and vibrancy of its culture” and features the talents of musicians and writers from Jamaica and New York including Robbie Shakespeare, Dwayne “iLLwayno” Shippy, Shane Hoosong, Machine Gun Funk, Patexx, Tyrantula, as well as Sting’s longtime guitarist Dominic Miller.
The first fruit of the pair’s collab is a sunny little tune called ‘Don’t Make Me Wait’, which you can catch below.
Sting and Shaggy together at last. What a time to be alive.
