Detour to dancehall
As reggae’s best-selling living artist, Shaggy took a detour from the mainstream this year.
After multiple crossover hits, “Church Heathen” signalled a departure from the formula-though mixing Gregorian chants into a dancehall record was always going to raise eyebrows. Predictably, it failed to match past chart successes, but it was an overdue return to his roots, and packed a punch powerful enough to re-establish his foothold among the dancehall elite.