Music: Shaggy and Friends set to "Sting" come January 6

“Sting was a no-brainer."

Easy to say, one supposes, when you have actually collaborated (on a brand new track), with the former Police frontman and you yourself are a Diamond-selling global superstar.

So it was that Shaggy, of "Boombastic" and "It Wasn't Me" fame, named Sting,  Wyclef Jean, and Fetty Wap as international headliners for  the 2018 staging of the biennial charity event Shaggy & Friends — the concert slated for the grounds of Jamaica House in St Andrew on Saturday, January 6, during the media launch at the Bustamante Hospital for Children  Conference Room on Wednesday. 

Shaggy later explained that he and the singer-songwriter - born Gordon Sumner - have been friends for a long time. It was during the collaboration that he suggested Sting come to Jamaica for the show. Sting has previously visited Jamaica, but he said, via video link that it had been "a long time" since his last visit. Synchonicity, the final studio album by the Police, was recorded at the famed Air Studio in Monstserrat, while the smash hit, "Every Breath You Take" was written at the Goldeneye property on Jamaica's North Coast. He has never previously performed in Jamaica, despite reggae being an integral facet of much of the Police oeuvre, including "Roxanne" "Wrapped Around Your Finger" and "Message in A Bottle."

Shaggy also spoke to be ing longtime friends with former Fugees frontman Wyclef. Fetty Wap, he said, was added after a mutual industry contact told the "Trap Queen" rapper (born Willie Maxwell II) about the show. He too, spoke via a brief video of his excitement over what will be his Jamaican debut. Joining the international lineup are reggae icons Third World and Barrington Levy, dancehall stalwarts Capleton, Ding Dong, Aidonia, Chakademus and Pliers, Professor Nuts and Wayne Wonder.and soca stars Bunji Garlin and Fay-Ann Lyons.

Since its inaugural staging, the Shaggy and Friends Concert has raised over US$1.6 million to fund various asects of the operations of the Bustamante Hospital, the only specialist paediatric facility in the Anglophone Caribbean

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