Roots toaster Sister Carol hosts the Royal Birthday Bash on January 17 at Cultcha Palace in Brooklyn, New York. This event will raise funds for victims of Hurricane Melissa, which destroyed sections of Jamaica in late October.
Royal Birthday Bash takes place two days after the Grammy-nominated artist’s actual birthday. It sees her returning to the borough where she was raised after migrating from Jamaica to the United States during the early 1970s.
Sister Carol visited the town of Falmouth in Trelawny parish, and the city of Montego Bay, which were both affected by Melissa, a Category 5 hurricane that made landfall in Jamaica on October 28.
It caused widespread destruction in the country’s south-west region, leaving 45 people dead, thousands homeless, without electricity and water.
“I visited those areas in November and get to witness the damages of that section. A lot of the roofs were replaced with tarpaulins,” Sister Carol reported. “We don’t wait on disasters to reach out to people, but with my birthday coming up, it makes sense to get some support for the people at this event.”
She will perform at Royal Birthday Bash alongside Kulture Kartel, Alistar Vaughn, Joseph Deminsion and the Tippatone sound system.
Sister Carol got her start in music during the late 1970s, performing on sound systems in Brooklyn. Later, she recorded culturally strong songs like ‘Black Cinderella’, ‘Rasta Girl’ and ‘Jah Disciple’. Her album, ‘Lyrically Potent’, was nominated for a Best Reggae Album Grammy Award in 1997.