Jamaican mega-star Shaggy has fired lyrical shots at the Gleaner newspaper and the media.
Still smarting over the article published in the national newspaper which brought his name into disrepute last November, the Hot Shot artiste posted a video clip of his verse in the video of the remix of Kemar Highcon’s “So Saucy” hit song, which also featured Dancehall Diva Spice, on Tuesday evening. The Operation Desert Storm war veteran did not spare any punches as he lyrically scolded the editorial team at the 185-year-old newspaper.
“Mi seh mi money up but wait dem have doubt / Seh di money deh-deh, inna di same account / Same amount, is like dem can’t count / Das why mi nuh ramp fi silence dem mouth / Yuh nuh see di people dem nuh in a weh them in a /Can’t believe weh them write in a the Gleaner / Them affi gain back we trust in a the media,” Shaggy deejay as he ripped a copy of the Gleaner into two and tossed it aside.
Shaggy’s lyrical barb comes four months after the newspaper published an article on Sunday November 2 last year, headlined ‘Busta Still Waiting – Hospital Yet To Benefit From $100m Raised At 2018 Shaggy And Friends Charity Concert”.
The headline had received widespread condemnation from many members of the Dancehall fraternity, fans of Shaggy, and scores of the newspaper’s readers, who felt the media house had treated the artiste unfairly and slanderously. A week later, Shaggy, who was overseas preparing honoring musical commitments, flew to Jamaica, where he held a press conference at the Bustamante Children’s Hospital in a bid to clear his name.
The platinum-selling artiste, whose real name is Orville Burrell, said that the questions surrounding funds raised by the Shaggy Make a Difference Foundation had left him feeling disheartened.
The 51-year-old had said the debacle had not only left him feeling disappointed, but had plunged him into heartbreak after his nine-year-old daughter came to him and said she knew he was going to the meeting at the hospital, “to tell them that you didn’t steal the money.”
He had explained that the funds raised from the charity concert were earmarked to be used to equip the intensive care unit of the hospital with additional beds. Shaggy, along with chairman of the hospital’s board, Kenny Benjamin, had explained that despite the handing over of a symbolic JM$100 million cheque following the concert, his foundation was waiting on the expansion of the ICU space at the hospital to facilitate the additional beds.
He also indicated that it was never the foundation’s policy to hand over cash directly to the hospital, but rather to meet the facility’s needs through the procuring of items.
