As Hurricane Melissa strengthened into a Category 5 storm heading straight for Jamaica, Grammy-winning artist Shaggy said he knew he had to act — but didn’t know how. So, he turned to ChatGPT.
“I don’t know anything about relief and how to prepare for a storm,” the reggae star told The Associated Press.
“I went to ChatGPT and looked at what we would need in a storm and we just bought that. Luckily, that’s exactly what they needed.”
Orville Richard Burrell, known globally for hits like “Boombastic” and “Angel,” was born in Kingston before moving to New York at 18.
He lives in Jamaica’s capital with his wife, kids, and dogs but was in Miami when Melissa made landfall.
After the October storm that killed at least 75 people across the northern Caribbean, the 57-year-old musician quickly mobilized aid, flying in supplies from Miami and delivering them to the hardest-hit communities.
“It’s urgent to get the word out and make sure people don’t forget,” Shaggy said. “I think Jamaica’s forever changed by this.”
He described the destruction: “There’s debris everywhere, there is sand and mud and some (roads) are still flooded, power poles are in the road. Black River looked like they dropped an atomic bomb there.”
Arriving in the middle of the night with no electricity, Shaggy said, “All I could give out was just water.” The next day, he distributed essentials like tarpaulins, diapers, flashlights, and batteries.
“We thought we were going to get chaos because we didn’t have much security. But they just started to form a line by themselves.”
“No one could really prepare for that,” he said. “The psychological effects it’s going to have on these children… a couple days ago they were probably playing, and now they’re standing in a queue just trying to find some food.”
Shaggy urged people to donate or keep the crisis visible online.
“We’ve got to keep the awareness up,” he said. “These places aren’t going to be fixed until probably 10 years before this is back and running the right way.”
“We’re very resilient people,” he added. “You’re feeling that community, camaraderie, within the Jamaican society. I love that.”
