Peter Tosh: Trying to hide the fire in the dark

By Dalton Fraser

Peter Tosh, one of Reggae's kings, was born in 1944 in a small district called Church Lincoln in the parish of Westmoreland, Jamaica W.I. He was well known in the town of Savanna-La-Mar, the home of the Mannings High School, and the capital of Westmoreland. As a boy, he attended Savanna-La-Mar Primary School and was very popular with students and towns people alike because of the music he played with his piano along with his friend "Donkey".

Later on, Peter went to Kingston and was one of three vocalists who teamed with Bunny Livingston and Bob Marley to form the Wailers band. During their time together, they had produced some of the most militant, popular, uplifting, spiritual, political and soothing songs. These songs were socially accepted and their contents unique as they were reserved for and evolved from conditions that involved political conflicts and struggles.

However, as time went on the three went their separate ways, but still and for all they were true to their mission. Hindsight would have it that unlike the three wise men that went to see the King, these three went their separate ways to assist in spreading and popularizing Reggae music throughout the world. Peter Tosh produced several albums including "Equal Rights", "No Nuclear War", Wanted Dread and Alive" etc. There overall contents fought against injustices, warned against danger, and expounded prophecy. For those who have seem him perform, seen him being interviewed, and fortunate enough to meet him, had no doubt in their minds that Peter Tosh was not an ordinary human being, but was a strong, principled, uncompromising "RASTAMAN' with profound thoughts about the oppression of People throughout the world. In this regard, he minced no words to let it be known. However, those who understood and loved him were not the ones who could accept his frankness, but were the individuals on whom the light shone and were caught with "caps on their heads".

Nevertheless his music like Jimmy Cliff's, Bob Marley's, Desmond Decker and the Aces, Ken Booth's Burning Spear's Culture's, Dennis Brown's, Steel Pulse, Don Drummond's, U-roy's, Bunny Livingston's, Alton Ellis', Derrik Harriot's, etc. helped to shape the direction of Reggae music which has influenced many musicians, students, nations and organizations throughout the world.

Today it appears the world including the nation from which he hailed, have blotted him from memory. No memorabilia: no T-shirts, no buttons, and his music are seldom heard on the radio. But for the time he lived, his rich legacies in music, his uncompromising stance against injustice and his promulgation of African liberation, we owe it to Peter, to remember him. Less we forget, Peter in his album "Bush Doctor" Symbolically prophesied in his song "Creation", Like Christ, when the cock crowed three times, he would be denied. Nevertheless the truth crushed to the Earth shall rise again. May he live forever.