Sting and Shaggy are having so much damn fun.
It’s around five o’clock in the afternoon when the guys complete their soundcheck at Jones Beach Theater. They’re about to play at KTUphoria, a radio festival boasting a lineup of pop’s biggest names from today and the 1990s: Pitbull, Enrique Iglesias, Dua Lipa, 98 Degrees and Backstreet Boys, to name a few.
The sun had beaten down on the duo as they ran through their set to an almost empty venue. Save for the few fortuitous insiders swooning as 66-year-old Sting sweat it out next to his 49-year-old counterpart, Shaggy, most concertgoers were still being held outside the gates. In about an hour, the guys would head back on the stage to open up the gig.
While snacking on some clementines inside the team’s dressing room, Sting laughs about the unusual situation.
“We don't normally start a festival,” Sting says. “We normally close.”
Coming from any other artist’s mouth, it may have seemed like a cocky remark. But Sting is an artist whose album sales might as well read “endlessly platinum.” He has more Grammys than he can count on his fingers. His band has already been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for 15 years. Speaking frankly is the only way he knows how.
“We have to get a plane to Paris tonight,” Sting says. “The only way we can do it is if we go on first.”
“Aren’t we going to catch a flight to Bulgaria after?” Shaggy asks. “You keep saying we’re flying to Paris.”
“We are flying to Paris,” Sting replies.
“But we’re just in transit,” Shaggy says, exhausted. “Why do you keep saying we're going to Paris!?”
“There is a very nice first-class lounge in Paris,” Sting says, ignoring his point. “I have my own chair.”
Somewhat defeated, but smiling, Shaggy asserts, “We're going to Bulgaria, bro!”
Under his breath, Sting grabs the last word: “I know we’re going to Bulgaria.”
This type of Abbott and Costello back-and-forth is emblematic of the pair’s relationship. Since before the release of their collaborative album, 44/876, in April, the pair have been on a media blitz around the world. While their interviews have touched on some serious issues, there has been no shortage of monkey business between the two.
And the dead horse has already been beaten. Yes, they're an odd couple to say the least. They've explained it a hundred times, but somehow they still love watching people wrap their heads around it.
“I like the surprise that it had engendered when we first announced our engagement,” Sting says.
“I like the look on people's faces,” Shaggy says, laughing.
“On paper, well, it’s strange,” Sting says. “But then we have a lot in common. We're both family men, elders and voters.”
This camaraderie was obvious when they later took stage and performed tracks both old and new. The setlist included a mash-up of “Roxanne” and “Boombastic,” harmonies during Shaggy’s hit “It Wasn’t Me,” and a singalong of “Angel.” They also played some original tracks, including their lead single, “Don’t Make Me Wait.”
The video for the song, which was shot in Kingston, depicts the two loving life: They shoot pool, play dominoes and throw back a couple of cold ones.
“What you saw in that video was kind of like my life,” says Shaggy, who grew up in Jamaica and moved to New York at 18. “Those are the neighborhoods I came from. We did it in a place called Allman Town. I'm from Rae Town. It's very similar. These people, they might have very little, but there's a lot of love, sunshine and warmth.”
At the end of the video, the pair stroll through the streets by moonlight, surrounded by merriment and dancing.
“It was set up with the cameras and sound system,” Shaggy says. “But they weren't just playing our song. It ended up being a party. They were playing a DJ set, and everybody was just going in.”
“It was one of the best parties I've ever been to in my life,” Sting says.
Sting, who spent a stint in Jamaica in the '80s, romanticizes his time there writing songs for The Police. While staying at James Bond author Ian Fleming’s Goldeneye estate, he wrote hits like “Every Breath You Take.” While he has fond memories of Jamaica, he remembers it much differently than it is today.
“I hadn't been for a long time, a couple of decades actually,” Sting says. “It's amazing how Kingston has changed, largely for the better. It feels very vibrant and positive. It wasn't the most easy town to be in during the '80s. Politically it was very febrile.”
Shaggy confirms with a nod, saying, “It was a heavy political time.”
They're referring to a time when rival political parties actually turned the city into a battle zone.
“You wouldn't go to downtown Kingston,” Sting continued. “It was dangerous. There was a lot of heavy s*** going down. It was great to be in the neighborhood with people feeling confident and welcoming you.”
Sting, whose music with The Police was always inspired by the region, says the sounds of the Caribbean traveled to the UK when he was young.
“I was born about England, but the West Indian community there was very influential,” Sting says. “I was brought up with ska music, bluebeat, calypso, reggae and dancehall.”
According to Shaggy, the Jamaican-inspired music Sting wrote reverberated back to the island.
“The Police, they were the guys that were like the gateway to the mainstream,” Shaggy says. “In England there was a very strong reggae movement that was going on. Anything that was happening in reggae happened out of England. They were brilliant. They could spot a sound that was cool, the 'it’ sound. That sound was reggae. They put their style to it, then it got played on mainstream airwaves. So for us older reggae guys who were there, it was: ‘Wow, our sound is on the radio!’ ‘Roxanne’ would be playing in Jamaica. It's cool now at this stage of the game. I'm rockin' and doing an album with an icon, who is somewhat a pioneer of my genre.”
Their album together, 44/786 (named after their respective country codes), has spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Reggae Chart. But they take pride in the fact that their music isn’t easily classified.
“I'm interested in hybrid music forms,” Sting says. “I don’t think we’re doing a [purely] reggae thing. ...”
“It's kind of mash-up,” Shaggy chimes in. “The beauty about what he has done with The Police and even after is he blends all these different styles of music. The basis of what we are doing is reggae, but in some of these songs you might hear jazz chords.”
Sting shudders. “Heaven forbid!”
“If you listen to all my earlier stuff,” Shaggy continues, “it wasn’t ‘authentic reggae,’ so to speak. I like things that catch your ears. The combination of us catches people's ears. When they hear the music, that should, too.”
And garner attention the duo have — on large and small scales. In a recent video with ABC News, the duo visited Shaggy’s home base in Valley Stream, New York. While his wife and kids live in Jamaica, that town is where Shaggy recorded all of his hits, including “Luv Me, Luv Me,” with Janet Jackson. When he and Sting paid a visit to the supermarket, shoppers were floored.
In 2001, when The New York Times profiled Shaggy as a man “Flavored by 2 Islands,” the article emphasized how he could no longer visit his local shopping mall, Roosevelt Field, without being swarmed. And it all started just a few miles from the green room they’re sitting in.
“So you owe it all to Long Island really?” Sting asks.
“A lot of it's Long Island, absolutely,” Shaggy answers.
While recording their record, Sting and Shaggy tried to share the same love and enthusiasm they receive when entering a Key Food.
Even when discussing daunting political topics, such as the DREAMers Movement and immigration, their primary objective is to make you smile. Arguably, the duo opening their set with Sting’s hit “Englishman in New York” could be perceived as a political statement itself. Songs sometimes take on new meaning over time. Sting standing on stage singing, “I’m an alien / I’m a legal alien / I’m an Englishman in New York,” just minutes away from communities where ICE agents have been making sweeping arrests, conjures a dramatic dichotomy for the state of our nation.
“You know, we're grown-ups, we look at the news with horror,” Sting says. “That's our job, to reflect the world that we perceive — in a way that’s first of all entertaining, but then if you scratch the surface there is a level of information that I think is important.”
“We’re grown men," Shaggy says. "We've got kids. A lot of things that didn't bother me when I was coming up is now serious business for me. The whole DREAMer situation for instance, yes, that touched a nerve. We have an opportunity to be a voice for the voiceless and state our opinions on things, so we do that.”
“Shaggy has an important position that he was an ex-Marine,” Sting says. “He fought for America in the Gulf War, and he's an immigrant. That gives him a great perspective to speak. I'm an immigrant, too, but I didn't fight for America, so I only have a certain amount of leeway to speak my mind. He can say whatever he likes.”
And Shaggy does. He’s made it clear that both he and Sting do not like Donald Trump. While most of it has received positive feedback, there will always be trolls on the internet.
“You'll always get criticism,” Shaggy says. “But we don't pay attention to them. I did a parody with James Corden, and oh, boy, did I get it!”
“I thought he looked cute in that wig!” Sting belts, turning to Shaggy. “You looked like Marilyn Monroe.”
Jokes aside, Sting does believe that the two's different personalities helped them write great songs together. He came to realize that although some of Shaggy’s previous songs may have been silly or dirty at first glance, they were really just parables.
“If you look at the lyrics to 'It Wasn't Me,'” Sting says, “at first I kind of blanched when I saw them, and I thought, ‘God, I can't sing 'banging on the bathroom floor'; I'm Sting, for God's sake!’ But then you get the whole lyric, and you realize that there is a moral tale because the devil gets his comeuppance in the end. It's a morality play.”
It’s meeting in the middle — the intersection of Sting and Shaggy — that made the process so easy.
“I don't think our perspectives entirely dovetail,” Sting says. “His is obviously different than mine. That's what's interesting. I'd bring a song in the morning and have a perspective on an issue. His would be from a different angle. It's not quite identical; that's what it should be. I think you add one and one and sometimes you get three.”
“We enjoy the risk, too,” Shaggy adds.
“There's a certain risk involved,” Sting says. “But without risk, it's not worth doing anything.”
As for the future of the duo, they’re set to tour the world this summer. They don’t know what’s next.
“I can't imagine our friendship would end at the end of the tour,” Sting says. “You know, both of us are always looking for new territory to explore.”
“The main thing I could tell you,” Shaggy says, “we've been having one hell of a f***ing time.” Turning to Sting, he adds, “Brother, I have enjoyed every single minute of it.”
“You too, brother."
Follow me on Twitter at @DerekUTG.
