Shaggy Passed on Rihanna Collaboration

Rihanna’s upcoming album won’t feature a collaboration with Shaggy.

In an interview with Britain’s Daily Star, the dancehall legend revealed that RiRi asked him to audition for a chance to be featured on her upcoming reggae-inspired album, but he turned it down.

“They approached me for the Rihanna project, yeah,” he said. “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.”

Despite passing on the opportunity, Mr. Boombastic is looking forward to the album. “But from what I hear it should be good!” he added.

He also voiced his support for Rihanna’s venture into dancehall. “It’s a healthy competition. Dancehall is in a good place but we need as many people to do this art form as possible. When it crosses over and becomes popular with artists from other genres and other cultures, that can only be good.”

The Bajan singer has been working on her long-awaited ninth album, which is rooted in reggae. “I like to look at it as a reggae-inspired or reggae-infused album,” she told Vogue last fall. “It’s not gonna be typical of what you know as reggae.”

Fans have been anxiously awaiting the follow-up to 2016’s ANTI, but the world’s richest female artist has been busy growing her $600 million empire. “I have been trying to get back into the studio,” she said. “It’s not like I can lock myself in for an extended amount of time, like I had the luxury of doing before. I know I have some very unhappy fans who don’t understand the inside bits of how it works.”

One person Rihanna does hope to work with again is The-Dream. Back in September, she proposed that they get back in the studio to cook up more music. “We definitely need to get back in the studio together,” she said during an Instagram Live session.