In late October, as weather forecasters predicted disastrous consequences for Jamaica from a Category 5 monster called Hurricane Melissa, Willie Stewart feared for friends and family from his home in South Florida.<\/p>\n
The forecasters’ dire predictions were accurate, as Melissa — which made landfall on October 28th — destroyed parishes in south-west Jamaica, leaving 45 people dead and thousands homeless.<\/p>\n
Stewart, former drummer of the Third World band, assembled some close colleagues to record ‘Have A Little Faith’<\/em><\/strong>, a song that salutes the resilience of Jamaicans in the aftermath of Melissa.<\/p>\n “Three days after the hurricane, inspired by humanitarian aid efforts and my wife’s suggestion, I realized I could help by writing a song. After sharing the idea with Steve Lane, we decided to create it together, involving several talented musicians despite their own challenges,” Stewart disclosed.<\/p>\n Leroy Sibbles, Carlene Davis, Dwisdom, Gem Myers,\u00a0 Glen Washington, J C Lodge, Wayne Armond, Alecia Marie, Patrick Ulysees Pinkney and Carl McDonald contributed to ‘Have A Little Faith’.<\/p>\n In addition to composing the song, Stewart co-produced it with Sean Wedderburn. He is also co-executive producer with Lane.<\/p>\n Stewart was a member of the classic Third World lineup from 1976 to 1997. He played on the band’s biggest hits including ‘Now That We Found Love’ <\/em><\/strong>and ‘Try Jah Love’<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n With all the despair in the wake of Hurricane Melissa, he is heartened by the reaction from his countrymen at home and overseas.<\/p>\n “The widespread unity, kindness, and compassion demonstrated in response have been truly inspiring,” said Stewart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In late October, as weather forecasters predicted disastrous consequences for Jamaica from a Category 5 monster called Hurricane Melissa, Willie Stewart feared for friends and family from his home in South Florida. The forecasters’ dire predictions were accurate, as Melissa — which made landfall on October 28th — destroyed parishes in south-west Jamaica, leaving 45 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12112,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12111\/revisions\/12112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}