Sean Paul Confirms There Will Be No Verzuz Battle With Shaggy

Dancehall fans have been clamoring for another Verzuz battle ever since Beenie Man and Bounty Killer clashed back in May and left fans begging for more. One of the clashes that many have opined would be just as mouth-watering was Sean Paul vs Shaggy but the Like Glue singer has put an end to this dream as he has publicly stated that he’s not interested in that kind of clash.

This comes after he denounced Dancehall clashes like the ever-popular Sting show as a form of “slavery mentality” while he was being interviewed by DJ Epps a little over a week ago. He said that he even spoke to Shaggy about the possibility of the clash and already told him that he wouldn’t do it.

“Me and him [Shaggy] have spoken. He asked me about it and I told him ‘No bro. I ain’t going up’,” Sean Paul told DJ Epps during the same interview even though he admitted that he was proud of Beenie Man and Bounty Killer’s clash which brought in over a million impressions and highlighted the diversity of the genre to people around the world.

“I like to watch Bounty and Beenie and Snoop and DMX and many more who went that way. For me this whole thing is weird, this whole online thing. I like crowd. It gives me more juices up here when I see them. It ain’t battling, but I just don’t like it.”

His dismissal of the clash culture came towards the end of an interview in which he labeled the dancehall clash culture “slavery mentality”.

Sean Paul also spoke with THE WEEKEND STAR, to share more about his feelings towards clashes and why he doesn’t like them.

“I start realising that this [clash] is a negative energy. It not really benefiting me, it just getting my mind against my own people.” Even as fans have urged him to ‘Do it for the Culture’, Paul said that people had to realize that every culture shares both negative and positive aspects.

“Over the years, I’ve been kinda sussing out in the brain about why I feel so weird sometimes when I see and hear a clash … yeah it’s exciting , but is it always exciting in a good way? There is always this feeling of horror or terror when my DJ or sound system was being beaten up, and it hurt me, and mek me as a fan feel angry. So when yuh suss it out in yuh brain, this don’t feel right to me yuh nuh, even though the energy is crazy,” he added.

The hugely popular Dancehall artiste added that he personally believed clashing was detrimental to the progress of Dancehall. “It come a point where I recognize it as the reason why the music is not going forward. Our fans are divided. When I put out a song with Alkaline, his fans will say, ‘Yow, Alkaline a di man’, but they don’t say a thing about me on the record, or about DJ Frass production. Other producers will say, ‘it alright’.”

The Gimme the Light singer said he also believes that it takes away from the spirituality of the music and he agrees with Capleton that: ‘Music is a mission not a competition’ and added that “music is supposed to be a joyful noise unto the Lord.”

He also stood by his mental slavery comments saying: “clashing each other is just Willie Lynch syndrome dividing and ruling us still to this day”.

Paul also said that clashing could make it easy for other people to copy the music and that it can have a negative effect on the younger generation of Dancehall deejays.

“We perpetuate these things over and over to the next generation so much so that it’s all some of the younger players know. This leaves space for people to do our music and call it their own without giving us the proper props we deserve and keep kids who are not even doing music in a divided state of mind. Time for us to work together and build and storm the world like we should because we are that dope,” he said.