New Song of the Day #33: Shaggy & Sting "Til A Mawnin"
Two old-school dons rewind a classic dancehall reggae riddim.
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OK, okay — hear me out here.
I was a moderate Police fan back in the day. Sting’s solo stuff, less so. I was a Shaggy fan, too, early on. Respected his ambassadorial crossover instincts. “O Carolina” was undeniable, and a cultural history lesson, to boot.
Musical history lessons work best when the tracks slap.
This new Shaggy + Sting tagteam, “Till A Mawnin,” is a history lesson, too. It’s a “re-lick,” as the Jamaican expression goes, a remake using the popular backing track — the “riddim” — of Don Carlos’ 1981 dancehall classic “I’m Not Crazy,” produced by the mighty Henry “Junjo” Lawes, a giant of Jamaican music, killed in a drive-by shooting in Harlesden, London in 1999. He was only 51.
The so-called “I’m Not Getting Crazy” riddim was created by Lawes with the legendary Roots Radics Band, a roots reggae institution who’ve been issuing back catalog recently with California’s Ohm Records. This riddim has been the foundation of several classics, including Frankie Paul’s “Worries in the Dance,” and the one probably most familiar to casual dancehall fans, Yellowman’s signature “Getting Married.”
Anyway, this new version is a legit addition to the tradition. Sting plays Don Carlos to Shaggy’s Captain Sinbad, Sting working his lower register — which has grown leathery in a very appealing way — on a chill unspooling of dancehall clichés that land just right. When he sings out “lighters in the aaaair!” what could be kinda cringe is surprisingly sublime.
This isn’t the pair’s first collab. In 2018, they made a major label LP together, called 44/876, named for the country calling codes for the UK (+44) and Jamaica (+876). It was heartfelt and kinda meh. They licensed some dub remixes (see below), a step in the right direction. For “Till A Mawnin,” they did it old-school, voicing their new song over the old backing track, with some tweaks, and issued it on the venerable reggae label VP — still based in Queens, New York, down the block from my alma mater, the now-defunct Jamaica High School.
Heads up snow-birds, spring-breakers and Floridians: Sting and Shaggy co-headline the Reggae Rise Up Festival in St. Petersburg on March 13. I bet it’ll be a jam.