Peter Tosh Tribute Week set for October 19-26 in South Florida

Peter Tosh Tribute Week will be staged in Miami-Dade County from Sunday, October 19 to Sunday October 26 under the patronage of the Jamaican consul general in Miami, Ricardo Allicock.

The week of events will pay tribute to the Reggae legend and one of the most outspoken advocates of equal rights and justice. It will be the first time that such a celebration for Tosh will be held in Florida. The events scheduled to mark this historic occasion starts on his birthday (October 19) with a Stepping Razor Birthday Bash featuring Peter Tosh recorded music and live spoken word-sound-and-power dub-poetry in Tosh's honour at the Marlin Hotel on Miami Beach.

The next event is the Word-Sound-&-Power film and video festival at Florida International University's South Campus on Tuesday, October 21. The film and video festival will be repeated the following night at FIU's North Miami Beach Biscayne Campus.

One of the Tribute Week's major highlights will be a Peter Tosh symposium, focusing on "His Life & Legacy" which is scheduled for FIU's Biscayne Campus on Friday, October 24. The symposium features a panel consisting of minister of finance Dr Omar Davies who is an ardent and vocal admirer of Peter Tosh's music; University of the West Indies lecturer and Tosh historian Dr Clinton Hutton; former Tosh manager Copeland Forbes who toured the world with the Reggae singer; Mama Joy "Free-I' Dixon, who is one of the survivors of the Tosh assassination incident; and Rootz Magazine publisher, I Jabulani Tafari, who conducted a number of exclusive interviews with the self-styled 'Mystic Man' during his most successful years.

The Tosh Tribute Week comes to a climax with a Tribute Concert under the auspices of the Miami Reggae Festival featuring South Africa's Peter Tosh protégé Lucky Dube, Andrew Tosh, son of the legendary Wailer and a number of other Reggae artistes. The concert is set for the Bayfront Park Amphitheatre in downtown Miami on Sunday, October 26.

Born on October 19, 1944, Peter Tosh, along with Bob Marley and Bunny Livingstone, was one of the founding members of Jamaica's most famous harmony vocal groups, the Wailing Wailers. After his split from the Wailers in the early 1970's, Peter Tosh and his Word Sound & Power band gained recognition for songs such as Legalize It, Equal Rights and Justice, and Mama Africa. Tosh shot to death at his home on September 11, 1987. The following year he received a posthumous Grammy Award for his final studio album, No Nuclear War.

The Tribute Week is being staged by King of Kings Promotions in association with Miami-based Jamaica Awareness, Inc, and a number of other local organisations.

Source: Observer Reporter