Peter Tosh - Intel HIM Diplo Records - 1973 скачать в хорошем качестве

Peter Tosh - Intel HIM Diplo Records - 1973

Like Marley, Tosh grew up in effect fatherless in the countryside, yet made his life an extraordinary trajectory. When I first met him in a New York hotel to cover Legalize It, he reminisced warmly about the “peeny-wally” (fireflies) he loved to capture as a boy, to guide him through the forest at night. Peter’s alpha male charisma shared the creatures’ restless, irrepressible twinkle. These belated, deserved official recognitions cannot bottle the zany flamboyance with which Peter approached his revolutionary mission. Startling Tosh tales abound, usually recounted with lingering amazement, even awe, by associates. I can’t forget one heated exchange that the photographer Kate Simon and I had with Tosh in a Kingston car park. Like many Rasta rebels, along with Peter’s fierce kung fu moves and ever-ready tracksuit garb, he could be a pretty patriarchal radical. To confirm his point, he bellowed that there was nothing more to be said, as he could make the thunder roar and the lightning flash. In an operatic gesture, he pointed to the sky. Right on cue, the elements loudly and brightly obliged, to Kate’s and my stupefaction. You can call it cheap theatre, but I’m not sure how you’d actually buy it; and as a closing argument, it was compelling. Passionate about mystic African science, Tosh was known to replicate such shamanism elsewhere, giving substance to another of his chosen titles – the Bush Doctor. In these arguably drier digital days, discussing such cosmic flourish could be seen as an attempt to trivialise Tosh’s political seriousness. Rather, Tosh was an uncompromising Afrofuturist, whose highly charged livity (as Rastas call a way of life) helped make him a lightning rod for conflict. Tosh understood brotherhood. Rumours of sibling rivalry around the Wailers split must be countered by the fact that Marley helped fund Legalize It when the label’s money ran out. Yet Tosh banged heads with his friend and then label boss Keith Richards, whose mountaintop Ocho Rios home Tosh first visited, then commandeered. The salvoes burnished both men’s piratical myths. But more seriously, Tosh’s brutally blunt, wickedly satirical rants, as well as his ganja habits, led to innumerable beatings by the police, more than once approaching the point of death – a tragic resistance fighter’s accolade that Tosh shares with Nigeria’s postcolonial liberation musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. It was one year after the army destroyed Fela’s Lagos commune, leading to the death of his mother, that Marley found himself in a Kingston prison cell, shocked to tears by the sight of his close bred’ren Tosh lying battered and bleeding on the floor. This brutalization, the gravest of many, was prompted by Tosh’s showstopping speech at the One Love Peace Concert held in 1978 to mark the truce between downtown’s warring dons, which had led to a politically motivated attempt on Marley’s life two years previously – part of a spectacularly bloody run-up to the election. Supported by the classic Sly and Robbie rhythm section of his Words, Sound & Power band, Tosh boldly skewered corruption in the world, Jamaica and the audience itself, scathingly naming names in a bravura performance that stunned the crowded stadium. And vengeance had soon come. So a violent death may not have been unlikely for Peter Tosh, though ultimately, its manner was unexpected and grotesque. Along with his DJ bred’ren, Doc Brown and Jeff “Free-I” Dixon, Tosh was shot to death on 11 September 1987 in his Kingston home by Dennis “Leppo” Lobban, a longtime acquaintance recently released from prison, whom Tosh had been trying to help. Vivian Goldman It was Marlene Brown's testimony that about 7:30 pm on September 11, 1987 amidst drinks and subdued laughter, the night's quietude was shattered by the unexpected entry of "Leppo" Lobban, accompanied by two gunmen, hitherto unknown to her. Lobban was toting a gun. They were ordered to "belly it". She understood that to mean, they should lie face down. Lobban demanded "US currency". Lobban instruct the two men who accompanied him to disarm Tosh, as "he was a Black Belt", whereupon Tosh was frisked and gun-butted; he seemed unconscious. When she objected to the remarks made by Lobban, witness testified that Lobban threatened to kick Tosh, who was lying there helpless on the floor. Just about then, witness recalled, there was a knock at the door. One of the gunmen opened the door. Free I and his wife were ushered in. They too, were ordered to lie face down on the floor. Free I objected and a gun was jammed into his side. He obeyed. They were all stripped of their jewellery and other personal effects. What followed after was a barrage of shots. Tosh, Free I and Wilton Brown was killed instantly. Marlene Brown was shot in the head but lived. When the men were about to leave, one of them observed: "She no dead!" He was about to turn back, but Lobban commanded: "Come! She dead a'ready." Sybil Hibbert - Jamaican Observer