Just under a month into the release of his new album, Grammy award-winning Jamaican artiste Shaggy is pleased with the reviews he’s read and heard.

“As far as reviews so far, it’s been incredible from the press. I don’t think I’ve seen a bad review on any of it,” the platinum-selling singer/DJ told the Jamaica Observer last Thursday about the 15-track set titled Christmas In The Islands.

The positive reviews, he added, have resulted in him getting “a lot of high-profile press” during his current promotional blitz in New York, where he had to appear in person for some interviews after doing others virtually from Jamaica.

“Remember, a project like this is really an over time project, meaning that it will stretch out for the next 10 years. Next year we might involve some new songs and dem tings deh to stretch it out over the 10 years; and it’s licensed to us but it’s distributed and marketed through BMG [Records],” he explained.

“So next year, we may take songs from the album and create singles or we might add new songs to the album. We might start adding Caribbean artistes to it — it’s Christmas In The Islands, so you might see mi add an artiste from St Lucia, Trinidad, etc,” added the artiste whose real name is Orville Burrell.

The album, released on November 20, offers a range of new songs with a Caribbean flavour and features top local and international artistes, among them Bounty Killer, Junior Reid, Joss Stone, Beenie Man, Craigy T, Jamila Falak, Romain Virgo, Ne-Yo, Ding Dong, Rayvon, Shenseea, Omi, and Sanchez.

The Caribbean’s rich, energetic culture is on full display throughout the album, and listeners will find themselves either nodding their heads, tapping their feet, or involuntarily dancing to No Icy Christmas, which features singer Sanchez, or Raggamuffin Christmas which sees Junior Reid and Bounty Killer joining Shaggy for a bouncy dancehall-flavoured expression of how Jamaicans, especially those in poor communities, celebrate the holiday. At the same time, listeners will simply soak up the pleasant, smooth melodies oozing from Open Presents, on which Shaggy and Romain Virgo paint a picture of family gatherings for the season.

While Shaggy is appreciative of the response so far to Christmas In The Islands he admitted that 2020 has been a tough year because of the novel coronavirus pandemic which has shut down many industries.

“It has been a tough year for everybody. It’s hard for my family, hard for my kids. I had to get myself back into things like folding clothes and [doing] laundry and gardening,” he said with a chuckle.

“But at the end of the day we had a great success this year with Banana, which we streamed over one billion, so it’s been a bittersweet year for me,” he added.

Banana, a compilation with Jamaican deejay Conkarah, was regarded as the track for the summer and, with Christmas In The Islands, has set the stage for Shaggy’s plans for 2021. However, he is keeping most of that to his chest for the moment.

“I have a lot of things in the basket. Whole heap a tings dat mi have ready fi go launch dat mi really can’t talk bout now, but you will be hearing from us a lot,” he told the Observer.

He did, though, say that his album project with female dancehall artiste Spice should be launched about March. “That’s one thing I’m very, very excited about.”