Dr. Orville Burrell: Shaggy To Receive Honorary Doctorate From Brown University
Dancehall megastar Shaggy will be conferred with one of nine honorary doctorates, 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, which is being staged for students who missed their in-person Commencement experience due to the pandemic, during the institution’s Commencement and Reunion Weekend.
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.
The University lauded 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,” it noted.
Brown University has, since 1769, five years after it was established, bestowed honorary degrees upon people it describes as “individuals of distinction and accomplishment, recognizing their leadership and contribution to society in many fields and disciplines”. The university, which is located in Providence, Rhode Island, also describes its honorary degree candidates a being selected for “both their renown and the reflection in their life and in their work of the values and mission of Brown as an academic community”.
The University notes that this year’s honorary degree highlights, will include a Commencement oration delivered by Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, who is among the recipients.
Shaggy joins his compatriots Lieutenant Stitchie, who has been the recipient of two honourary doctorates, as among Dancehall firsts to attain such accolades.
Stitchie received his first in 2011, from the Cornerstone Christian University in Orlando, Florida, in recognition of his contribution to Gospel Reggae, and again in November last year, courtesy of the Dayspring Christian University, in Ontario Canada.
That degree, an Honorary Doctorate in International Humanitarian Law, came by way of the university’s Association for Biblical Accountability in Education & Friends For Life Outreach Department of Training and Education. It was presented to Stitchie for his involvement in outreach in correctional facilities in Canada and other areas, as well as in education.
A handful of Reggae artists, too, have also been recipients of such accolades.
In June last year, Reggae Singer Ziggy Marley was conferred with an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts by Medgar Evers College, located in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York.
His mother Rita Marley, widow of the late iconic reggae artiste, Bob Marley and former member of singing group the I Threes received a Honourary Doctor of Letters from the University of The West Indies (UWI), Mona in 2015.
Rita was described by the UWI as making invaluable contributions to the Jamaican music industry as singer, producer, performer and entrepreneur and for building “a globally recognised empire with members of the Marley family, and, by extension, the spread and reach of Brand Jamaica as a related and intertwined category”.
In November 14, Jimmy Cliff was similarly awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the UWI.