Bounty Killer and Lady Saw both earn RIAA gold certifications with No Doubt 20 years after their hits.
The two dancehall icons collaborated with No Doubt in 2001 on two singles that were mega-hits back then. Bounty Killer collaborated with the pop band on “Hey Baby,” while Lady Saw collaborated on “Underneath It All.” Both singles were produced by legendary duo Sly & Robbie and are now certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), meaning they both sold over 500,000 copies in the United States.
The singles appeared on No Doubt’s classic album, Rock Steady, which was certified double platinum by the RIAA in October 2002. The project is now inching towards triple platinum certification with over 2.8 million copies sold in the United States. It’s also certified platinum in Canada by the Canadian equivalent to the RIAA, Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA).
“Hey Baby” earned No Doubt and Bounty Killer a Grammy award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards in 2003. The song saw major commercial success, but the music video created quite a bit of controversy, especially for Bounty Killer and his massive dancehall fan base in Jamaica and its diaspora. The final cut for the music video features No Doubt’s drummer Adrian Young appearing nude in one scene. The injection of that scene in the cut infuriated Bounty Killer, who asked the group to edit out that scene before releasing it. The video was eventually released with the nude scene with minimal censorship, which further infuriated the dancehall legend.
The video caused a rift between Bounty Killer and No Doubt, resulting in him boycotting several of their planned performances and almost never performed at the Superbowl with the band. Bounty spoke about the issue in 2017 during an interview where he expressed his anger almost two decades later.
“When I saw that naked man in the video I wanted to kill No Doubt literally,” Bounty said at the time. “It caused a big problem, it caused publishing problems, it caused relationship problems, everything broke down because that sh*t wasn’t in the video. It was a two-day shoot in California and Mike Myers shoot the f***ing video and no naked guy was in it, a naked guy has nothing to do with the storyline of the f***ing song. So when I saw it I told them take that sh*t out. Because that sh*t is going to cause me problems in my culture.”
Bounty Killer and Beenie Man were still at the height of their infamous feud, and of course, Beenie pounced on the opportunity to use it against his rival. Although Bounty and Beenie have mend fences since it’s unclear if Killer and No Doubt ever repaired their broken relationship over the music video.
Despite the controversies sparked by the video, the song saw major commercial success where it peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and reached the top ten in several major music markets worldwide.
No Doubt and Lady Saw’s “Underneath It All,” which was also released on the album Rock Steady, was released as a single in mid-2002 and would go on to see major commercial success. To date, it’s the band’s highest-charting US single, peaking at No. 3 on the Hot 100 chart and spent two weeks at that position.
Just like “Hey Baby” did in the prior year, “Underneath It All” earned No Doubt and Lady Saw a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 2004 at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards. Lady Saw didn’t appear in the music video for the track.
