Man who ‘accidentally made Shaggy famous’ by making one major error at work reveals what really happened
Jen Thomas
Featured Image Credit: MCA Records/Jason Koerner/Getty
Many of us have made a mistake or two in the workplace, but imagine if your error made Shaggy famous?
That's what apparently happened to one employee who worked for a marketing start-up in the 1990s and ended up sharing Shaggy's 2000 hit 'It Wasn't Me' with the world.
Most of the time a flub at work might end up in a slapped wrist or an awkward meeting if you're unlucky, but launching someone's career out of it is unusual.
Especially as the mistake maker said they ended up getting fired for their oversight that caused a lot of music to be leaked, including that of Mr Boombastic himself. Ouch.
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Posting on the 'Ask Me Anything' subreddit, the user confessed to what allegedly happened.
They recalled how it seemed like an ordinary day to start with, writing: "We would oftentimes get pre-release albums for review, we would get one or two copies that the entire office had to share so we would burn them onto our work machines to listen to during work."
Remember the days of burning CDs and downloading music to Napster? (Ask your parents if not).
That's exactly what this person did as they continued: "One Friday I burned several dozen new albums onto my hard disk one of them being Shaggy's album."
Job done, they left for the day, not thinking anything of it.
That is, until they saw the news that several major albums had been leaked.
As well as Shaggy's music, Madonna's Music album as well as new material by Nelly, Nelly Furtado and Limp Bizkit were all apparently leaked early.
What a nightmare.
The Redditor wrote: "My colleagues and I joked that someone we knew was getting fired."
Little did they know that it would be them getting the chop.
Fast forward to the following Monday, they explained: "When I got to work that Monday I realized I had left my computer on and those albums had been downloaded millions of times."
It turns out they didn't just burn them to CD.
"I had accidentally saved the burned albums to my SCOUR/Napster shared folder and I realized I was responsible for the leak," the user claimed.
It didn't end well for them.
They remembered it recently after seeing a documentary about Shaggy and how the ironically titled 'It Wasn't Me' made him famous.
Redditors rushed to ask questions and to praise the poster and ask questions.
One wrote: "Wow I loved/still love that song! I totally remember that happening, I was a Napster user. Did you feel mortified when you found out it was you and you didn't intentionally mean to do it?"
The poster replied: "Wow I loved/still love that song! I totally remember that happening, I was a Napster user. Did you feel mortified when you found out it was you and you didn't intentionally mean to do it?"
Another commented: "YOU'RE THE GUY!!!! This dude is a pirate legend, and responsible for one of the greatest feel good stories of the 90s."
They continued: "The label was basically treating Shaggy like s**t, and ignoring him, until "Wasn't Me" leaked and exploded. This dude MADE Shaggy."
With the ultimate backhanded compliment the user added: "Your incompetence is legendary, bro!"