I once read that Shaggy, the reggae artist, had suggested that instead of liquidating the psychopaths of ISIS, we should shower them with weed and reggae albums so they’d be too chill to kill.
I immediately deemed him a genius.
I only recently learned that Shaggy, aka Orville Richard Burrell, is ex-military. He was a Marine during the first Gulf War and credits waking up to garbage cans bouncing off hard floors during boot camp and surviving a combat deployment with preparing him to thrive in the often harsh and unpredictable music business.
“The military saved me from the street,” the Jamaican-born singer told me Thursday, while in Boston for the Home Base gala. “I’d do anything to help my brothers and sisters in the military.”
