Shaggy says his hit “It Wasn’t Me” was meant to be an “anti-cheating” song

In 2000, Shaggy released “It Wasn’t Me,” the Jamaican artist’s biggest to date. The song, which depicted a conversation between Shaggy and RikRok about the latter cheating on his girlfriend, reached number one on charts all across the globe. In the track, Shaggy tells him to deny everything and say, “it wasn’t me.” Until now, most fans thought the anthem was a guide to cheating. But in a new interview with People, Shaggy claims otherwise.

“It was a big misconception with that song because that song is not a cheating song,” Shaggy explains. “It’s an anti-cheating song. It’s just that nobody listened to the record to the end.” He then gives a reminder that towards the end of the song, RikRok sings in the bridge, “Gonna tell her that I’m sorry / For the pain that I’ve caused / I’ve been listening to your reasonin’ / It makes no sense at all.” RikRok tells Shaggy, “You may think that you’re a player / But you’re completely lost.”

Shaggy continued: “Nobody hears that part! That’s what the song says. But everybody’s just caught up on that, ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.’ It’s an anti-cheating song. No one ever really buys into that, and I keep explaining it to people. Then, they go listen to it back and be like, ‘Oh dude, I totally missed that.’”