Sting and Shaggy talk One Fine Day Festival on the XPN Morning Show

In 2023, the unlikely pop pairing of Sting and Shaggy brought their ongoing creative collaboration to The Mann Center for their inaugural One Fine Day Festival with Thundercat, Tank and the Bangas, Koffee and more.

This year, they’re bringing the party back, with their festival returning to The Mann Center this Saturday, September 6th. As they get ready for the big event, Sting and Shaggy called in to the WXPN Morning Show to tell us all about all things One Fine Day, beginning with the roots of their friendship.

“Sometimes you meet people in life, and you kind of recognize them even though you’ve never met them before,” Sting said. “And there’s a spirit about a person that that’s, it’s strange. You hink you know them. And that’s the way it was with me and Shaggy, we just got on immediately and made each other laugh, made music together, traveled the world together and never had an argument.”

“It’s never, it’s never boring, to be honest with you,” adds Shaggy. “It’s always something exciting musically. We’ll push to come up with crazy ideas, like, you know, he made me do an album with Sinatra records and reggae! Which is something I thought I would never have done, but I did it anyway, and it came out great and we had a lot of fun doing it.”

Asked why they to chose to hold their curated festival in Philadelphia, Sting simply answered “Why not Philadelphia? It’s a major music town with major musical history, you know. It’s a great city.”

They shared memories of the inaugural One Fine Day, where it poured rain by the music brought sunshine to The Mann, and talked about the “eclectic and fun” lineup that reflects the wide musical taste both artists have: jam scene favorites O.A.R., reggae greats The Original Wailers, New Orleans bounce titan Big Freedia, as well as singer-songwriters Chance Emerson and Sophie Grey.

“It’s something that if we look at it, we would wanna watch this, you know?,” said Shaggy.

Our chat ended on the collaborative nature of the One Fine Day Festival, where Sting and Shaggy not only perform a shared set as headliners, but also plan to pop up during the day throughout other performances to sit in and jam with other performers on the bill. “We’re trying to create a spirit of community between the bands the artist and the audience,” Sting said. “That’s the idea: community and joy, and let’s face it, the world that needs it right now.”

One Fine Day Festival happens at The Mann Center on Saturday, September 6th; tickets and more information can be found at the WXPN Concert Calendar.