New Report: Shaggy Asked Rihanna To Be A Part Of Reggae Album ‘R9’

According to new reports, Reggae icon Shaggy had initiated contact with Rihanna’s team with the intent of being featured on her new album (R9) but the project was already near completion.   The reports say that Rihanna attempted to have Shaggy included in the already finished album by suggesting he submit material for her to consider.

An alleged representative for Rihanna speaking on the Jamaican Irie FM morning show denied previous reports that the Barbadian singer had asked Shaggy or any other artiste to audition for R9.

Shaggy had said in a DailyStar interview that “they approached me for the Rihanna project yet. There’s a lot of great people involved but for me, I didn’t need to audition to be on the record, I’ll leave that to younger guys.”

The representative said that “after Rihanna had already gathered all the material for the album, Shaggy contacted her asking to be a part of the album. She explained to him that the album was pretty much completed and they were just working on mixing, mastering and deciding which songs to actually use.”

“However, she invited him to submit some materials so she could see if it fits with the flow of the album. That was by no means asking for an audition, it was more going out of her way to get him on the album,” the rep added.

The representative blasted the initial reports of Shaggy’s DailyStar interview and said, “we hope Shaggy will come out and let the fans know the real truth because we all know that the media in general and especially entertainment media cannot be trusted. They will twist someone stories in order to get the most viewers.”

The representative added that Rihanna has nothing but love for the people of Jamaica. “She loves the fans of Reggae and she loves Reggae music as her career has proven and nothing can or will ever change that,” she said.

Fans of both Rihanna and Shaggy were at odds over the news that he had declined to audition for the album. Shaggy was on the receiving end of some backlash, as some Rihanna fans believed he should have been grateful for any chance given by the successful Grammy-award winning singer.

While other fans declared that Shaggy is a legend in his own right with Grammy-awards of his own, and should not have been disrespected by making him to submit to an audition for anything – especially a reggae album.