YOUNGSTERS who make a living wiping motor vehicle windscreens at traffic lights have praised Grammy Award-winning international recording artiste Shaggy for his philanthropic Christmas gesture which will see them earning money from sales of copies of his new CD.

Last Thursday, when the first set of CDs were distributed in Kingston, one of the windscreen wipers thanked the artiste — also known as “Mr Boombastic”, the name of his 1995 hit single — for his generosity.

“Mr Boombastic, weh yuh a do fi di in di street youth dem, no one ever do dat before. We respec yuh highly, Mr Boombastic,” he said.

“Mi a go turn over da money here and start mi own little stuff by selling likkle juice or likkle biscuit or banana chips, or some phonecard. Hundred per cent love, Merry Christmas an a happy new year,” he added to shouts of approval from his colleagues.

Another of the youngsters described the initiative as “a good deal because nuff people nah go gi weh 2o gran [$20,000] jus’ so”.

“Weh him a do still, a willing an a God heart still, yuh kno. Yea, respect it,” he added.

The project will see 150 youngsters, some of whom also sell wipes, keeping the proceeds of the sales of the platinum-selling artiste’s Christmas In The Islands album.

Shaggy, who had announced the initiative at the album launch in November, told the Jamaica Observer last Thursday that distribution of the CDs to the youngsters began that day in Kingston and Montego Bay.

Each beneficiary received between 10 and 20 copies of the CD.

“Part of the whole thing is really monitoring them. We have to be in touch with them all the time, give the CDs to them. If they run out then we replenish, so it’s something we have to manage,” he told the Sunday Observer, adding that he has a team of people doing just that.

Only two traditional Christmas songs — I’ll Be Home For Christmas and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas — are on the 15-track album. The others are new selections, some featuring Bounty Killer, Junior Reid, Joss Stone, Beenie Man, Craigy T, Jamila Falak, Romain Virgo, Ne-Yo, Ding Dong, Rayvon, Shenseea, Omi, and Sanchez, to name a few.

The set is currently available on all popular digital platforms.

At the November launch Shaggy urged Jamaican motorists to purchase the CDs in order to help the youngsters selling them.

“So, if you see a guy come up to your car glass…just don’t run him,” he said. “If you see him in a Shaggy shirt, yuh jus know seh yuh can buy dah CD deh from him, and… all the proceeds from that go straight to these guys… [it’s] their Christmas present from us. The more dem sell, the more dem keep.”

On Thursday night when he spoke to the Sunday Observer he was in New York promoting the album via media interviews.

“Most of them I had already done virtually, but [for] some I had to be here in person,” he said, adding that he was looking forward to returning to Jamaica to be with his family and spend Christmas here.