In a new interview with the Daily Star, Shaggy revealed that he turned down the chance to collaborate with Rihanna on her long-awaited reggae-dancehall album, R9. The reason? They wanted him to audition.

“They approached me for the Rihanna project, yeah," he explained. "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. But from what I hear, it should be good.”

Despite ego getting in the way of what could have been a banging collab, Shaggy says he's happy Rihanna is shining a spotlight on Caribbean music regardless of his involvement.

“Dancehall is in good place but we need as many people to do this art form as possible,” he said. “When it crosses over and becomes popular with artists from other genres and other cultures, that can only be good.”

As for when R9 will actually drop, we still have no clue.