Shaggy Details Post-Hurricane Melissa Relief Efforts in Jamaica: ‘You’re Never Really Prepared for Something Like This’ 

“I’m on an adrenaline run at this point,” Grammy-winning reggae icon Shaggy tells Billboard less than a week after Hurricane Melissa made landfall on his home country of Jamaica. “I was around when [Hurricane] Gilbert happened, which [was] a Category 3… when I heard [Hurricane Melissa] was a Category 5, I [couldn’t] imagine what this would be.” 

Last week (Oct. 28), nearly 40 years after Gilbert, Hurricane Melissa became the strongest storm to strike Jamaica in the island’s history. In the following days, the storm also made landfall in Cuba (Oct. 29), devastated parts of Haiti, and brought residual rainfall and intense winds to the rest of the Caribbean — and, later, to the Northeastern coast of the United States. According to The New York Times, the death toll in Jamaica from Hurricane Melissa is now a devastating 28 — and that’s with dozens of communities still awaiting aid, as local authorities and humanitarian workers continue clearing debris. 

Shaggy, who topped the Billboard Hot 100 twice in 2001 with the reggae crossover classics “It Wasn’t Me” and “Angel,” was one of the first homegrown superstars to spring into action and spearhead relief efforts, alongside Beenie Man, Spice and Sean Paul. Once the airports opened on Thursday (Oct. 30), Shaggy mobilized a network of on-the-ground partners, including humanitarian NGOs and private donors, to coordinate and fund flights carrying food, water, medical aid and household essentials to Jamaica’s most impacted areas. 

“We got [to Jamaica] early enough to reach the people, because it took me around six hours to get from Kingston to St. Elizabeth in Black River, which is normally a two-and-a-half-hour drive at most,” Shaggy tells Billboard. “We had to chop [tree] limbs down, move things out the way, and drive through high puddles of [runoff], so we got there in the middle of the night. At that point, all we could do was pass water out, so we had to regroup and drive six hours back to Kingston. The next day, we went to the Junction side of St. Elizabeth, which took us four hours. The square itself was shut down. It was ground zero because it wasn’t livable anymore. Nobody could stay there.” 

According to Reuters, Hurricane Melissa left nearly half a million Jamaicans without power and destroyed critical water systems and supply lines. With the island’s southwestern parishes, specifically St. Elizabeth and Westmoreland, remaining difficult to access due to flooding, landslides and debris, thousands of Jamaicans remain housed in emergency shelters, which presents an entirely different set of challenges, such as overcrowding. Whether they’re braving shelters or making their way to the eastern side of the island, families across Jamaica are still reeling from Hurricane Melissa.

“The devastation and shock are real,” Shaggy notes. “For some of these kids, therapy is going to be [very important]. It’s not just food and clothes and shelter. 

“You’re never really prepared for something like this; It’s the biggest [hurricane] on record,” he continues. “[The government is] doing their best to see what they can do to get in there. Large trucks are going to have a hard time going through the debris, so you’re going to need the military and urban development to clear up the roads so that supplies can come in, and that might take a couple of days. Smaller vehicles have the advantage of getting in there, so we’ve been doing that so that people are not starving until the big aid comes.” 

In addition to delivering everything from roofing supplies and Pampers to “flashlights, batteries, everything that you can think of putting on a list,” Shaggy has also teamed with Global Empowerment Mission (GEM), which has been on the ground on the island since Hurricane Beryl in 2024. “Food for the Poor, of course, also has a major headquarters in Jamaica,” Shaggy adds. “I’ve done lots of work with them. Sean [Paul] is working with them closely right now, so I decided to work with GEM to spread it all around. There’s also the government site, www.supportjamaica.gov.jm.” 

Jamaica is home to some of the music industry’s biggest and most iconic voices — from Shaggy himself and reggae iconoclasts like Bob Marley and Peter Tosh to dancehall superstars like Vybz Kartel and Shenseea. At the top of this year, Kartel made his Billboard cover debut with a whirlwind “24 hours in Kingston” interview ahead of his historic Freedom Street concert. This spring, Billboard also reported that, in under a year. New York’s UBS Arena hosted five $1 million-grossing Caribbean-headlined shows across four different genres. In days immediately following the storm, AccuWeather experts estimated up to $52 billion in damages and economic loss from Hurricane Melissa across the Caribbean. 

“I don’t think anybody’s in any festive mood at this point,” Shaggy says of the future of Jamaica’s music and live entertainment industries post-Hurricane Melissa. “Jamaica is a land that doesn’t have any shortage of talent or artists or culture; it’s easier to get aid from people because of our cultural status. But we’re still not getting enough coverage. The minute you’re not in the press is when the aid goes, unfortunately. Keeping up awareness in the press is something that we need to do.” 

Additional verified aid channels include World Food Programme, Project HOPE, GiveDirectly, American Friends of Jamaica, and Friends of Caritas Cuba. Click here to see how more celebrities have been reacting to Hurricane Melissa.