Shaggy’s Former Manager Denies Claims of Mismanagement – Watch Interview
Robert Livingston, former manager of Grammy-winning dancehall/reggae artiste Shaggy, has had enough of the tarnishing of his name and is refuting alleged claims of mismanagement made by the veteran artiste.
During a panel discussion at the Island Music Conference, Shaggy implied that he had to make back all his money after losing it, as he did not know then what he knows now. The Boombastic deejay also emphasized that managers should not touch their artiste’s money. In a recently released interview on TVJ’s Entertainment Report, Livingston shared his side of the duo’s business partnership that turned sour years ago.
Shaggy has not mentioned anyone by name, a tactic Livingston said is being used to keep him from taking legal action. According to Livingston, any claims Shaggy has made of being robbed or cheated out of a percentage of the royalties from his music are false. The music manager explained that, unlike the industry standard 50/50 split that was used back then, he was taking 40 percent, which was not deducted from the artiste’s entire career.
“The percentage that I was getting was very clear. It was 40 percent on production, 25 percent from publishing, and 20 percent on management. And I don’t do double-dipping, so I wasn’t getting management percentage from publishing and royalties. No. I was only getting management percentage from touring,” Livingston stated.
Livingston went on to state that Shaggy has a problem with what happened because he thinks he should be wealthier, but pointed out that things could have been much worse for the entertainer.
“You could have never even had a career [ … ] When Virgin dropped Shaggy, I said to Shaggy, ‘I am not going anywhere.’ I had three job offers, and I didn’t take them. I sit there with him, I said, ‘You know what? We gonna get you back up in this thing. We gonna do it together,” Livingston said.
The Big Yard producer also detailed the many losses they suffered as a team, including $3 million on a commercial that they didn’t get for It Wasn’t Me, and revealed that they lost over $15 million in that period but said the decisions that they made back then were team decisions. However, Livingston acknowledged that he should never have kept Shaggy separate from the label deal he made with Universal Music.
According to Livingston, Shaggy is either vindictive or does not want to see him survive, but as he is still in the music industry, he has to protect his name.
Watch the video below:
