International dancehall artiste Shaggy has thrown cold water on any possibility of him taking part in a Verzuz battle against fellow Jamaican, Sean Paul.

During an interview on the Breakfast Club this week, Shaggy said emphatically that, after Bounty Killer’s and Beenie Man’s standout performance as the first Jamaican artistes featured in the rap battle series, he couldn’t see how he and Sean Paul could do it better.

“Beenie and Bounty, how they did it, I was just like, it was done. So for me, the interest to do it, after that, to me I just can’t follow that,” Shaggy said in responding to Breakfast Club co-host DJ Envy asking if the two multi-platinum selling Jamaican acts would ever consider meeting up on the Verzuz stage.

Shaggy and Jamaican dancehall artiste Spice were on the Breakfast Club to promote their new hit single, Go Down Deh, which also features Sean Paul.

Sean Paul, who also made a recent appearance on The Breakfast Club, had suggested at the time that he hadn’t been enthusiastic about taking part in a Verzuz battle because he initially didn’t understand it to be a friendly faceoff, given the history of dancehall clashes in Jamaica.

But Shaggy also noted that, when Verzuz was first considering a Jamaican pairing, he and Sean Paul were approached, but it was in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. He suggested too that Sean Paul’s asthma made the prospect of taking part in an event like that would have been even more unappealing to his friend.

The unlikelihood of Sean Paul and Shaggy taking the stage in what would be only the second Jamaica-themed Verzuz battle, and the first since Bounty Killer and Beenie Man exploded the popularity of the series in May last year, will come as a disappointment to dancehall fans across the world.

In an Our Today poll last month, readers overwhelmingly declared Sean Paul and Shaggy their choice pairing for the next dancehall battle, whenever it might take place, with 47 per cent of the vote.

Another potential clash selected by readers was between young dancehall vixens Shenseea and Jada Kingdom, which received 24 per cent of the vote.

New generation reggae superstars Chronixx and Protoje were also popular among Our Today readers with 23 per cent of voters going for what would be a neo-roots bout.

Despite acknowledging Breakfast Club co-host Charlamagne The God’s insistence that there would be immense interest in him taking on Sean Paul, Shaggy maintained that the Bounty Killer-Beenie Man performance was just too good.

“When you saw the type of people who logged on that night, how the whole vibe was, I don’t think me and Sean could top that,” he said.

“What they should do is rerun that.”

Verzuz was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic as a virtual DJ battle, similar in style to Jamaican sound clashes, with creators Timbaland and Swizz Beatz facing off in its first iteration through an Instagram Live broadcast in March 2020.