Fifty for Fifi

This song did not come across my radar when it first came out. I in fact wasn’t aware of it until Fi introduced me to it many years later.

I was aware of the artist’s perhaps most well known hit, in which he counselled a younger man caught in flagrante delictio by his partner to say the supposedly perfect answer – “it wasn’t me”.

That song was very much a duet, with RikRok doing a lot of heavy lifting to allow Shaggy’s buzzy, rumbling bass vocals to shine. Having an awareness of Jamaican traditions through my interest in Dub particularly, I thought he was good, but essentially a one trick pony.

One of the things I love about the musical side of our relationship is how often Fi has enlightened me over the years. I don’t know if Boombastic takes Shaggy out of the one trick pony category, but if it doesn’t it shows he has such a mastery over that trick to transcend.