Rihanna's team has reportedly denied Shaggy's claims that she required that he audition to be a part of her upcoming reggae inspired album. Shaggy recently revealed in an interview, “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.” An alleged representative of Rihanna's called into Jamaica Irie FM Morning Show. They said, “We are working on an album, not a talent show, so why would she (Rihanna) require Shaggy or any other artist to audition?”
The rep added that Shaggy actually reached out to Rihanna and by the time he did, the album was complete. Rihanna's team responded by asking Shaggy to submit material that he felt would go along with the album's flow.
The rep explained, “After Rihanna had already gathered all the material for the album, Shaggy contacted her asking to be a part of the album. She explained to him that the album was pretty much completed and they were just working on mixing, mastering and deciding which songs to actually use. However, she invited him to submit some materials so she could see if it fits with the flow of the album. That was by no means asking for an audition, it was more going out of her way to get him on the album.”