See Keith Urban’s ‘Wasted Time’ Reworked by Shaggy, BJ the Chicago Kid
While Keith Urban‘s bread and butter is country music, his latest album Ripcord features a savvy mixture of textures and rhythms incorporated from other genres. Recent Number One “Wasted Time” is a good example, its glowing nostalgia bolstered by pulsing synthesizers and programmed beats at a quick enough clip for dancing.
Still, it’s surprising to see the song being flipped by “Mr. Boombastic” and “Wasn’t Me” performer Shaggy and R&B singer as well as BJ the Chicago Kid. The singers took their best shots as part of iHeartMedia host Paul Costabile’s viral-friendly On the Fly show, where he urged them to smooth out Urban’s country lyrics. Shaggy applies his familiar dancehall-derived cadences to the song, punctuating each line with ad libs but limiting the melody to a small cluster of notes. BJ the Chicago Kid, on the other hand, devises an entirely new melody that allows him to show off his silky croon, confidently improvising little trills that actually sound quite smooth.
“Wasted Time” recently became Urban’s 20th country radio Number One song and the third from Ripcord. Urban is currently headlining the Ripcord World tour with guests Brett Eldredge and Maren Morris, which will visit Gilford, New Hampshire on July 2nd and 3rd.