Shaggy Shares How US Marine Corps Training Shaped His Distinctive Voice

Dancehall megastar Shaggy has shed light on how his time in the United States Marine Corps played an instrumental role in shaping his distinctive baritone voice.

His path to stardom took an unlikely turn when he enlisted in the Marines as a means of finding stability and escaping the challenges of his Flatbush, New York neighborhood. The decision, Shaggy explained, proved to be a crucial stepping stone in preparing him for the hurdles that lay ahead.

“The Marines was a good set up for everything that I was about to encounter in life that I didn’t know,” the 54-year-old remarked during an interview with Billboard.

“Drill instructors—they used to put these voice off and say ‘hey, boy! Drop and give me 20 boy!’ And I just used to mimic them because they would call me out to sing cadences. Little did I know that that was actually vocal training because I was singing from my gut and running three miles.”

He reminisced, “And so I wrote ‘Boombastic’ and they debuted it number 1. The first Reggae or Dancehall artist to debut on the British charts…”

Shaggy, who enlisted at the age of 18 in 1988, found himself deployed to Kuwait two years later as part of the Field Artillery Battery in the 10th Marine Regiment during the Persian Gulf War, commonly known as Operation Desert Storm.

The genesis of Boombastic, according to Shaggy, was pretty casual.

“The track came on and all I started to do was moaning, and out of that came a song. I would say the first couple of albums I wrote by myself without writing them on paper,” he explained.

Boombastic spent 29 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 3, and 17 weeks on the UK Singles chart, where it peaked at No. 1.

The song formed part of the entertainer’s third studio album of the same name, which earned him his first Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album. 

Boombastic (the single) is certified Platinum in the UK, for sales exceeding 600,000 units, and Platinum in the US, for sales exceeding 1,000,000 units.  The Boombastic album is certified Silver in the UK, for sales exceeding 60,000 units, and Platinum in the US, for sales exceeding 1,000,000 units.

Shaggy later released Best of Shaggy: The Boombastic Collection, a greatest hits compilation in 2008, which was certified gold in the United Kingdom (UK) on Friday, October 14, 2022, after it sold over 100,000 units.

The collection featured 19 songs from eight of his previous studio albums, including Boombastic and In the Summertime with Rayvon from Boombastic (1995), Angel and It Wasn’t Me from the multi-platinum Hot Shot (2001), Hey Sexy Lady and Strength Of A Woman from Lucky Day (2002), and Oh Carolina from Pure Pleasure (1993).

Meanwhile, the Grammy Award-winning singer added that he had his eyes set on musical success from as early as his childhood days. In fact, he was inspired by Dancehall veteran Yellowman.

“I saw Yellowman live at Skateland when I was a kid. Yellowman walked in, he sang a couple songs and he walked out and everybody in the dance walked out with him… I said, ‘that’s what I want.’”

It is safe to say that King Yellowman is also fond of Shaggy.

In during a 2020 interview with the Jamaica Star, he expressed his displeasure at Beenie Man’s remake of his iconic song, Zungguzungguguzungguzeng, noting that he would have preferred Shaggy or Sean Paul.

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