Songfacts®:

• This is a tribute to women who stick by their men through good times and bad. Speaking with MTV, Shaggy explained: "How many times do guys screw up and realize that all them chicks they were hitting wasn't even worth the time of day? Meanwhile, old girl was the one that was there when you got locked up. Life is one big party when you're still young, but who's gonna have your back when it's all done? That alone says it. It's just plain homage to the women that hold it down. Shaggy's always been for the ladies."
• The West Indian vocalists Rayvon and Rikrok sang on this. Shaggy helped them put together solo albums in return.
• The chorus is based on the lyrics and vocal melody of "Angel of the Morning," a hit for Merrilee Rush in 1968 and Juice Newton in 1981. Shaggy got the idea when Rikrok came into the studio singing it.
• The bass line is sampled from "The Joker" by Steve Miller. It was one of the first times Steve Miller allowed one of his songs to be sampled. He let Run-D.M.C. use "Take The Money And Run" with Everlast on vocals at around the same time when they reworked that song in hip-hop style. In 1990, Miller won a lawsuit against rap group The Geto Boys when they used "The Joker" without his permission.
• The beat came together first on this track, then Shaggy added the lyrics.
• "Angel" was the follow-up to "It Wasn't Me"; both songs went to #1 in America and helped the Hot Shot album sell 6 million copies. It was a big rebound for Shaggy, who was dropped by his label over disappointing sales of his 1997 album Midnite Lover.
  
  Neither of these songs were pegged as the surefire hit: "Dance And Shout" was released as the album's first single, and it went down in flames when it was issued in the summer of 2000. It wasn't until six months later that "It Wasn't Me" took off and Shaggy was everywhere.