In the wake of Hurricane Melissa’s devastation, Henry K and Sia reflect on Jamaica’s unbreakable spirit — and what it truly means to live with purpose. From the humor of “Wild Gilbert” to the wisdom of a Cornell study, this episode explores how resilience, rhythm, and compassion keep the island — and all of us — moving forward. Featuring heartfelt stories, reggae insight, and a call to rebuild with love and intention.

Fundraiser by William Brawner : Rebuilding For The Future In The Wake of Hurricane Melissa

Produced by Henry K in association with Voice Boxx Studios Kingston, Jamaica

"Row Jimmy" (Garica/Hunter) performed by Judy Mowatt

ROOTSLAND NATION Reggae Music, Podcast & Merchandise

The guy's righteousness govern the world.

Broadcasting live and direct from the rolling red hills on the outskirts of Kingston, Jamaica, the Roots Land podcast.

Stories that are music to your ears.

Greetings, everyone.

And these are tough times in Roots Land.

We want to start off by sending our love and prayers to everyone in Jamaica, all of our family and friends impacted by the strongest hurricane to hit the island in a century.

Henry, that was the strongest hurricane of all time, okay?

Of all time.

Hurricane Melissa didn't just pass.

She carved her name into the island and tore a hole right through the heart of Roots Land.

Two thirds of Jamaica lies in ruins, but the western parishes, St Elizabeth, Westmoreland, the fertile plains around Black river and Santa Cruz, gone under.

Fields that fed the nation now flattened.

Montego Bay airport torn apart.

And all along the south coast looks less like paradise and more like a war zone.

But if there's one thing I've learned in all my years in Jamaica, she bends, but she doesn't break.

So, Sia, how's Grandma Blossom and all your brothers and sisters in country?

We're all very grateful.

We're so thankful that my family's okay.

My friends are okay.

They had leaks, but the roof is still standing, and they're alive.

No casualties.

My family's in St. Thomas, which is east of where the devastation really hit.

So they got very lucky.

If the eye of the storm had hit them, it would have been devastating.

Where the eye hits, land makes all the difference.

Just a mile or two decides who lives and who dies.

Very true.

Even though St. Thomas didn't get the worst of it, it still is bad.

It still is very bad.

I saw where the roads collapsed.

There's a big hole in the road.

I saw Bath was flooded, and that was only just two videos I saw.

I'm not there, obviously, in person, so I can't imagine the areas that were hit, what they look like, what it looks like in person.

Just pure devastation.

Yes, it's really rough down there.

And we've been hearing from lots of you, the Roots Land gang, asking where and how they can support the rebuilding process.

You know, they trust us, Thea, for reliable info.

But I know there are a lot of sketchy fundraisers, charities that pop up in times like this.

So at the end of the show, we're going to tell you a great way how you can do your part.

Yeah, you have to be careful because of all these scammers out there, especially with social media and TikTok and all that.

So, Sia, like I was just telling you, before we went live.

Jamaica always finds a way to smile in the sorrow, doesn't it?

To find purpose in the pain.

Right before I moved to Jamaica, the whole island was nearly flattened.

But just months later, the biggest song on the radio and the streets was Love and Dear's Wild Gilbert.

I remember Wild Gilbert.

Who could forget Une se me dish?

Une se me satellite dish.

That sounded like the opera version.

Oh, that's funny.

It was a full blown comedy about chaos.

A man wading through the flooded streets, searching for his lost satellite dish like it was his last lifeline to the world.

It was absurd, but it was genius.

Because back then, those big dishes the size of UFOs were like trophies up in the hills.

The national flower of Jamaica.

Yes, uptown was worried about their gardens, while downtown was still trying to find clothes and something to eat.

It was comedy, but it was also therapy.

Half the island lost their homes, the other half lost their cable service.

And somehow everyone ended up joining together as one to rebuild the country.

Because Jamaicans do have this gift, the ability to turn pain into performance, to process disaster through music, through faith, through humor.

It's like the island knows you either laugh or.

Or you drown.

The song Wild Gilbert became a kind of mirror, a joke that revealed something real.

Because in every storm, there's always a divide.

The uptown worried about losing signal.

The downtown worried about what to eat for dinner.

But through it all, music united the people.

It gave everyone a space to breathe again, to move again, to remember you are still alive.

You know, Siya, it's not just the hurricane.

It feels like even before Melissa, people had forgotten what it meant to really be alive.

So true.

Very true.

We've been caught up in our own worlds, our own bubbles scrolling past each other instead of actually reaching out.

And it's not just one generation.

It's everybody feeling it lonelier, more disconnected.

Like we're all living behind glass.

Henry.

We actually are.

Everybody's on their phones or behind their big computer screens.

Good point.

And we've talked about that before on the show.

How the noise of modern life drowns out real connection.

So anytime I come across something that offers a little hope, a way to feel more human again, I want to share it with our audience.

And what better time than now?

So just last week, before the hurricane, I read an article about this study out of Cornell University.

They called it the Contribution Project.

Contribution projects.

I like that.

It sounds interesting.

Yes, very interesting.

It started out with a simple idea.

Give young people a small amount of money, $400 and let them decide how to use it in a way that feels meaningful.

No instructions, no conditions, just trust.

And what the researchers found out was something that we basically already knew.

Happiness doesn't come from what we keep.

It comes from what we give.

Most students didn't spend it on themselves.

They bought groceries for their parents, helped a younger sibling pay for school fees, picked up supplies for a neighbor.

A few even used that small grant to start something lasting.

Community gardens, mentoring programs, small social enterprises, initiatives not for profit, but for people.

And the results were remarkable.

Those students reported feeling more connected, more useful, more alive.

They were happier, not because they had more, but because they had done more.

One young woman said, it made me realize I could do something small and it would still matter.

That sounds like me.

It does.

You're a giving person.

That's it right there.

The pulse of purpose.

Knowing your hands can change something, even in the smallest way, and that what you do matters.

The lead researcher, Dr. Anthony Burrow, called it purpose in motion.

And that phrase stayed with me.

Because you can't just think your way into purpose.

You have to move into it.

You take a step, no matter how small, and meaning begins to take root beneath your feet.

Purpose isn't a privilege.

It's a practice.

And when you move with it, when we use what little we have to help someone else, life begins to expand.

That's what science says.

But we didn't need a study in upstate New York to know what Jamaicans and Rastafarians have known forever.

This is what Rastafarians call livity, the divine energy that flows through all living things.

To live in rhythm with the world, to move with intention, to live right, eat right, think right.

It's about balance between self, earth, and spirit.

When you live with levity, everything you do carries meaning.

You don't need wealth or titles or permission, just a sense of belonging and motion.

You see it in a farmer tilling his soil, a mason working with stone, and the drummer beating his nyabingi drum, each one moving in harmony with creation, planting, building, singing.

That's what reggae has always been about.

Rhythm as remedy, movement as medicine, music as prayer.

Because the Rastafari knew long before any scientist wrote it down.

You can search the entire world for happy, but it's not something you find.

It's something you create.

It's that vibration you send out when you live life with purpose.

Sia, do you think that Dr. Burrow at Cornell University, the head researcher, is a fan of the reggae band Third World?

A fan of Third World?

How should I know?

That's so random.

Well, decades before his Purpose in Motion theory, Third World had the song Sense of Purpose, which sounds a lot like his premise.

They said when you have a sense of purpose in love and in life, you gain the strength to rise above negativity, to overcome that darkness.

Because purpose isn't just what we do.

It's how we live, how we love.

It's how we lift each other up.

It seems like after every storm.

Gilbert, Ivan, Dean.

Jamaica always found its rhythm again.

In a song, in a dance and a reason to rise.

It's what Bob Marley meant when he sang the words forget your troubles and dance.

He wasn't saying ignore them.

He was saying, move through them.

Because a person in motion stays in motion.

Small movements become mighty causes.

Bob Marley knew when you keep on moving, you resist stagnation, you resist apathy.

You resist and defy a system that wants you to sit still, to stay numb, to scroll your way through the day.

Because motion in mind, in body and spirit, is life, you know?

As I see all these pictures and posts of devastation across the island, there is so much I do not recognize.

Small towns and fishing villages along the south coast from Treasure beach to Sav Lamar are gone.

Bluefields, child, home of Peter Tosh, where I stayed last year while working on the show, leveled the agricultural heartlands of Mandeville and St. Elizabeth.

Towns of Santa Cruz and Holland.

Bamboo completely unrecognizable.

But in the middle of all that wreckage, there was something I did recognize.

Jamaican spirit.

I observed it in a group of locals helping an elderly woman take stock of what little was left of her seaside beach bar.

I saw it in a neighbor hoisting a water tank back onto another man's roof.

In road crews made up of farmers and shopkeepers clearing fallen trees with everything from chainsaws to machetes.

In street vendors who had lost practically everything themselves, handing out free breadfruit to the volunteers, cleaning up.

And in one small moment that said it all, a young girl, wiping tears from her mother's face, saying softly, don't worry, Mom.

We will build back again.

That's the Jamaica I know.

The one that took me in all those years ago and made me feel at home.

I know in the days ahead, the politicians and business leaders will rush to rebuild the airports and seaports, the hotels and attractions that draw the world to our shores.

After all, tourism keeps the lights on.

Business is business.

But Jamaica's true wealth doesn't lie in its resorts or revenue.

The island's Greatest resource has always been its people.

Golden sunsets and white sandy beaches exist all over the world.

But the warmth, the humor, the generosity, that's uniquely Jamaican.

That's what keeps people coming back.

That's what keeps the island alive.

So my hope, my prayer is that the same energy, care, and funding poured into rebuilding the roads and runways and hotels is also poured into rebuilding the people and their lives in homes.

Because the heart of the island isn't made of concrete and steel.

It's made of flesh and blood and resilience.

And that, more than anything, is what makes Jamaica truly special.

You know, Siya, after every storm, every trial, every.

We need to find a sense of purpose.

And since Melissa hit, a lot of our listeners, friends of Roots Land, have reached out, asking how they can help in a real way, Something that makes a difference, not just a gesture.

Yes, a lot of people have been asking me, too, where they can help out, how they can help out.

Well, one of our Roots Land soldiers and close friend to the show, Billy Brauner, the same man who brought me down to the Peter Tosh Festival last year, is working directly with a community that needs us now more than ever.

Billy has spent years working with the Selassie School of Vision in the Blue Mountains, a small Rastafarian village that's become like family to him.

A few years back, after seeing a helpless mother turned away due to lack of space, he vowed to never have that happen again.

So he helped to build a woman's shelter there, a place of refuge for young families looking for a better life and escaping domestic abuse.

That shelter and those families, they survived many storms until this one.

Melissa tore through those remote Blue Mountains and left behind flooding and unimaginable destructions.

Homes were washed away.

Families lost everything.

Nine of those families, the same ones that had just found safety, are now displaced again.

Our friend Billy's heart is heavy, but his spirit is strong.

He set up a GoFundMe to restore the shelter, to rebuild the homes and help the community find its footing again.

You can find the link below in the show notes.

So if Rootsland has ever meant something to you, if our stories have ever moved you, this is your chance to be part of one, to turn that sense of purpose into action.

Henry, could I just say something?

Yeah, of course, Billy.

Henry told me what you're doing with the women's shelter, and I must say, I feel like you're doing God's work.

It takes a very special person to do what you're doing.

I hope everybody clicks the link below this is a great way to help these individuals.

You know exactly where.

You know where your funds are going, who you're helping.

Thank you, Billy.

And to my Jamaican people, my family, stay strong.

We will rebuild.

We're going to end the show with a song called Ro Jimmy, sung by Judy Mowat.

One of the best songs I ever produced.

A song that reminds you to keep going even when you think you're out of strength.

Truly.

Catch a rabbit by his ear come back stepping like you're walking on ear get back home where you belong and don't you run away, no don't you hang your head let the good time roll Grasshack nailed to a pine wood floor Ask the times, baby, I don't know come back later gonna let it show and I say roll Jimmy Ro gonna get there I don't know seems a common way to go get down row, row, row Jimmy Here's a half a dollar is to give double twist when you hit the air you got two leads down below by the river I direct sh Broken heart don't feel so bad you ain't got half of what you thought you had Rock your baby to and fro not too fast and not too slow and I say ro Jimmy Ro gonna get there I don't know seems a common way to go get down row, row, row, row that's the way it's been in town ever since they tore the tooth box down 2 bit beast don't buy no more not so much as it's done before I say raw Jimmy Ro Ro When I get there I don't know the common way to go I say Ro Ro J Sam Produced by Henry K.