DESPITE having two Best Reggae Album Grammys, Shaggy says he’s a bit excited about his recent nomination in the category and is looking forward to the awards ceremony slated for next month.

“I’m really excited about this one, because of Sting. The one that we won the last time, Sting wasn’t with me. I’m hoping we’ll be together on this one. He [Sting] produced Com Fly Wid Mi…Sting made me do something I pretty much never knew I would do, which is to sing the way I do. Sting has always pushed me to do things that I’m scared of doing… He has always pushed me to that little place of uncomfortableness, for lack of a better world, so I’m really excited about this project,” he told the Jamaica Observer recently.

Com Fly Wid Mi was released in May and sees the entertainer Shaggy singing 10 of the legendary actor/singer Frank Sinatra’s best-known songs.

Nicknamed the ‘Chairman of the Board’ and ‘Ol’ Blue Eyes’, Sinatra was one of the most popular entertainers of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. He is among the world’s bestselling music artistes with an estimated 150 million record sales. Sinatra passed away May 14, 1998 at 82.

Shaggy said both Sting and himself had to personally promote the project.

“To get any major company to go behind a reggae record right now is virtually impossible because of the market share we [reggae] hold. So I know we had to promote it ourselves. We did everything to be nominated. We created the right amount of music… We did all the right things to be nominated so we weren’t surprised. We did all the right things to be part of the conversation. If I wasn’t [nominated] I’d be disappointed, but I would be right there to cheer the next guy on,” he said.

Sting (given name Gordon Sumner) is a British musician and former frontman of rock band The Police from 1977 until their breakup in 1986. As a solo musician and a member of The Police, Sting has received 17 Grammy Awards.

Shaggy has two Grammy wins under his belt–he won in 1996 with the album Boombastic in 1996 and again in 2019 for the joint album with Sting dubbed 44/876.

“If you look at the gap between my Grammys, the first one was in 1996 and the other in 2019. I’m not really a Grammy darling, but it’s a small fraternity and you can understand why I’m part of the conversation. If you look at it, it’s quite undeniable. The year I won it, there was no other record as big as Mr. Boombastic, and there was no other record as big as 44/876 at that time. And the [44/876] tour was the second largest grossing tour in the world at the time. It kinda made sense. Nobody could sit down and question it–it’s warranted,” he said.

In addition to Shaggy’s Com Fly Wid Mi, Koffee (Gifted), Sean Paul (Scorcha), Kabaka Pyramid (The Kalling), and Protoje (Third Time’s the Charm) are the nominees for Best Reggae Album at the 65th Grammy Awards. It is scheduled for the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on February 5, 2023.