Shaggy reveals he turned down Rihanna’s invitation to be on her new album because she asked him to audition

@People magazine reports, Shaggy was approached by Rihanna to collaborate on “R9,” which is reportedly finished, but hasn’t been released—however, he turned her down because she reportedly wanted him to audition for a spot on the project. 

During a recent interview with a U.K. media outlet, Shaggy was asked about his involvement in the album and that’s when he revealed what actually happened.

Shaggy explained things this way:

They approached me for the Rihanna project, yeah. 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. But from what I hear, it should be good.

Shaggy made it clear that there are no hard feelings about the two not getting the chance to work together this time and also acknowledged that a star as big as Rihanna doing reggae is a great way for it to get even more exposure.

He stated:

It’s healthy competition. Dancehall is in 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.