Dancehall megastar Shaggy will be granted with an honorary doctorate, by one of the United States’ leading Ivy League research universities, come Saturday, May 28.
Shaggy, whose real name is Orville Burrell, will receive a Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Brown University during the Undergraduate Class of 2020 Commencement Ceremony.
The University praised Shaggy as “not only a pioneering songwriter”, but one who has “used his platform to strengthen his community and homeland”.
In 2009, he established the Shaggy Make a Difference Foundation and organized the first of many Shaggy and Friends benefit concerts, which to date have raised millions for the Bustamante Children’s Hospital in Kingston.
The University, in its citation of Shaggy on its website, describes the Kingston native as a Reggae icon and a US Marine who “got his start as an emcee in New York City’s dancehall scene after moving to Brooklyn in his teens, and who after serving four years in the U.S. Marines, including two tours of duty in the Middle East as part of Operation Desert Storm, earned his first record deal and scored a global crossover hit with Oh Carolina.
“As the only diamond-selling dancehall artist in music history, Shaggy has sold more than 40 million album units to date in addition to landing eight singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and seven albums on the Billboard 200, including four in the top 40. He is among the top three streamed reggae artists of all time on Spotify,” it reads.
