- What's up I'm Gaby Wilson for MTV News,
and I'm here with two legends.
Sting and Shaggy, to talk about their project
four-four to eight-seven-six.
Is that the proper way to say the title?
- I would say four-four-eight-seven-six.
- [Gaby] Four-four-eight-seven-six.
- It's the country code for Great Britain,
if you're calling Great Britain, and 876 is for,
- Jamaica
- Two guys from two different islands.
One in the cold North Atlantic,
and one in the sunny Caribbean.
That's not my island.
(laughter)
Clearly.
- When people see your names together,
or even hear them together, it's definitely a surprise.
Was it as unlikely a pair to the two of you?
- I mean my strategy is always about surprise.
I want people to be surprised whenever either of us
make a choice about the music we compose,
or who we work with or whatever.
I think it's the most important element,
to flout people's expectations.
- [Shaggy] We was bored.
(laughter)
- We had to spice it up, yeah.
Ya know, we have to come in and shock you.
- It surprised us both how well it worked.
Ya know on paper, you'd think
"Well, how's that gonna work?"
- Then we had to sit down and think about
how crazy it would be, and how shocking it would be
to everybody once we present this.
And, it was.
But that's what we liked about it.
- Was there always like,
talk of potentially doing music together?
- [Shaggy] Nah - It surprised us.
- It just kinda happened. - A happy accident.
Had more fun making a record than you could imagine.
I'm surprised any work did get done,
because we were laughing most of the time.
- Oh, was there work?
(laughter)
- [Gaby] You have an album to show for it, right?
- I didn't think it was work.
It's a good accident.
- Yeah. But in the creative process, who was bringing what?
- So, he normally brings a lot of the musical thing to it,
and then it's collaborative,
we have other people that are there
that help us to make a record.
- We had about 40 Jamaicans in the studio
- Yeah
- I have no idea what they were doing in there, but--
- There were ideas that were flying around.
So he might come with a song and I'll just
come with my perspective of whatever the content
of that song is.
Ya know what I'm saying?
And it could be the other way around, also.
- What did you learn from each other?
- I love his spontaneity, he can write a song on a
(finger snap) dime like that.
I'm much more private in my creative process.
So he invited me into that world,
I wasn't entirely comfortable with it,
but I realize that by taking a risk,
you get a chance of learning something.
So I did that, and I'm very grateful.
- When you're outside of your comfort zone,
you're in a whole new different water right there.
You're like, you're threatened, trying to make it work.
It's exciting when the end product becomes amazing,
because you just went through a whole new process
to get to that end product.
- I made him sing in a more traditional way
than he does normally.
- [Gaby] That was the uncomfortable thing?
- And he was resistant to that at first.
But you sang great, once he started,
once he committed to it, there was no doubt in my mind
that he can do it.
But I wasn't tempted to rap
I think that would be a bridge too far for me.
- [Gaby] Do you think at any point--
- No.
- [Gaby] You could be swayed to rap?
- No. - Why is that?
- I just don't see myself doing it.
- Did you try and coax that out of him in the studio?
- Yeah he did, but he was doing it
like he's making fun of me.
- Billabong, billabong!
- Yeah, like that.
He won't do it to where it's serious.
(laughter)
He'd just do it hommina-hommina-hommina yeah!
And then everybody gets to go
"Oh, yo, Sting is rapping"
- That'd be a rap.
- Well the thing that strikes me,
when you talk about the project
you talk about it as this like cohesive idea,
this conversation between two islands.
But was that concept something that
you went into the studio with?
- No, we had no concept but for having fun.
Just sharing the time, sharing the space,
and seeing what happened.
It's like a big petri dish, you put something in,
then you put something else in.
And you don't know what you're gonna make at all.
- At one point we didn't even know if we was doing nothin'.
(laughter)
- But the results-- - Jokes and shit goin' on
- The results seemed to be good and positive from day one,
so we just kept throwing stuff in the soup,
ya know, and it fizzes.
- I'm curious about some specific tracks.
Just One Lifetime felt like
a standout on the album for me.
Talk to me a little bit about
the Genesis of that song.
- Well I introduced Shaggy-- - Lewis Carroll
- To the poetry of Lewis Carroll.
I said "I want you to say these lines."
He said "What is this? What's a Walrus?"
I said "It's an animal that lives in the North Atlantic,
"not in the Caribbean, it's like a big seal."
- We ain't got no walrus in Jamaica.
- [Sting] No, no walruses.
I chose that poem because it's an absurdist poem
about two very unlikely characters,
the walrus and the carpenter,
and they live in this topsy-turvy world
where everything is crazy.
And I feel that that's what we are,
we're an unlikely couple in this
Trumpian world of madness.
Ya know, everything is upside-down.
But we're also realists, we know what's going on.
It's very dark, but we need to say
"Things can get better."
So the album is very lighthearted and fun,
but it also has a political perspective,
- Undertone to it - on the times.
You write about the things that concern you.
- When you're younger and you're making music,
a lot of these things didn't matter to you.
I mean we're in a different generation now,
where the news really comes on your phone.
It's really a part of everything.
So it's natural for you to touch on all of these points
when you're making these records because now,
we gotta take our music and the platform
that it has given us,
we gotta take it as a platform to let our voices be heard.
- It's also saying we have to act.
We have to change things for the better, ya know.
Make things better.
- We can't sit here and just write a song and change it.
I'm not saying that's what we could do.
But we can start a conversation.
When I see these kids that came out and demonstrated
about gun laws the other day,
to me that was an indication that
democracy's alive and well.
- I have six children, I have six grandchildren.
He has five children.
That gives you a different perspective,
'cause I'm thinking about what's gonna happen in 20 years.
30 years.
Beyond my mortal life.
I want my kids and grandchildren to live in a safe world.
- There's a song on the album, Dreaming in the U.S.A.
Which is a clear nod to the DREAMers.
Why was that important to have on this project?
- The threat that those kids are under.
- Immigration - And we are both immigrants.
What led us to live in America
was a love of America, actually.
Through the movies, through music,
through art, through literature, through culture,
and I'm still in love with that America,
but those things are under threat,
and a very serious threat.
So it's a reminder to Americans
why we love the idea of America.
And America's far from perfect, as you well know,
it's full of paradoxes,
but the idea of America is a pure one.
And the world needs that.
And without that, there's simply no alternative.
So it's important that you Americans
realize how much you're loved.
- Well you guys are about to tour for this album,
and like going song for song,
I like the idea that neither of you
are leaving the stage for that.
- No we're gonna try to integrate
as much of the material as possible.
- What's the arrangement process for that?
- [Shaggy] We don't know yet.
- Oh you don't know? (laughter)
- We actually have far too much material between us
- Yeah, it's a lot - Plus the new material.
But we'll do it.
- Will you go through each other's catalogs?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- To whittle away?
- He's gonna sing some of my songs,
I'm gonna sing some of his songs.
- People wanna hear hits, as well as the new material,
so we will accommodate those wishes,
in an entertaining and surprising way.
- What of each other's songs are you
most excited to perform?
- I really wanna do Oh Carolina,
and Mr. Boombastic, the bathroom floor one,
the moral parable. (laughter)
- And we did it in a church the other day,
we did it in Germany in a church.
We're in a church.
- It Wasn't Me?
- Yes.
- We played a concert in a church
- With the pastor there
- So he was havin' a whole conversation
with the pastor about
"I'm gonna sing this song, and it's
"a moral parable,"
and he was going through the whole thing.
I was just dying. (laughter)
- Infidelity, and then retribution.
- Right, it's a cautionary tale.
How bout you Shaggy, what's your favorite...
- Fields of Gold is lovely, Roxanne is always great.
- Englishman, - You gonna get up there in
that falsetto for Roxanne?
- We always do Englishman.
- We're gonna do Jamaican in New York.
- Jamaican in New York.
- There's lots of things we can cross-pollinate.
- We're just gonna have fun with the set.
- Fantastic.
Well I can't wait to see you guys out on tour,
thank you so much for coming in and talking to me
- Thanks for havin' us. - Pleasure to talk.
- It was great, big ups every time.
Love the orange sweater.
- Thank you.
(ambient electronic music)