"Wanted Dread or Alive" Babylon's Cross-Hairs
In "Babylon's Cross-Hairs", Host Henry K takes a close look the history of reggae music and its intertwined relationship with Jamaica’s sociopolitical landscape, focusing on the iconic One Love Peace Concert. Henry K recounts his experiences at Tuff Gong Records, where the essence of reggae was not merely a genre but a movement that encapsulated the struggles and aspirations of a nation. This episode takes a look at historical significance of the One Love Peace Concert held in April 1978, a pivotal moment that exemplified the unification of a fractured Jamaica during a time of political turmoil. We explore the contrasting artistic and ideological expressions of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, two luminaries of reggae music, whose relationship was marked by both collaboration and rivalry. The concert not only showcased Marley's vision of unity but also highlighted Tosh's unyielding commitment to speaking truth to power, as evidenced by his pointed criticisms of the political establishment during the performance...A show that would have severe repercussions for Tosh.
Petition · Justice Denied: Reopen the Peter Tosh Murder Case Now - United States · Change.org
Produced by Henry K in association with Voice Boxx Studios Kingston, Jamaica
Intro Features Third World Bans YimMasGan
Rootsland "Reggae's Untold Stories" - YouTube
ROOTSLAND NATION Reggae Music, Podcast & Merchandise
subscribe to the Herb and Legends feed below
Easily listen to Herb and Legends in your podcast app of choice
Transcript
Greetings, Enrique.
Speaker B:Hey, Bunny Dread.
Speaker B:What's going on, bro?
Speaker B:How you doing?
Speaker A:Yes, man.
Speaker A:Everything is everything, you know?
Speaker B:Yo, it's hot out here, Bunny.
Speaker A:Hot in the place.
Speaker B:Demi frickin Kingston Summers, man.
Speaker A:Why don't you sit down in the shade and burn a little herbs with the eye?
Speaker B:No, thank you, Bunny.
Speaker B:I'll pass.
Speaker B:It's a little early to be burning herbs.
Speaker A:What do you mean?
Speaker B:Kind of hot, right, to be smoking?
Speaker A:No, it's the best time to burn herbs.
Speaker A:Ayah.
Speaker B:Oh, it is the best time.
Speaker B:I didn't know that.
Speaker A:Did I ever tell about the night at the One Love Peace concert?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:No, you didn't.
Speaker B:You went to the Peace concert.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:What, do you sit next to Manly and Seaga?
Speaker A:Yes, I.
Speaker B:Tell me about it, bro.
Speaker A:Hot fire.
Speaker A:My youth, man.
Speaker A:Pure fire.
Speaker C:Entertainer and reggae star Bob Marley, Rita Marley, and the manager of the Whalers, Don Taylor, are now patients in the University Hospital after receiving gunshot wounds during a shooting incident which took place at Marley's home at 56 Hope Road tonight.
Speaker D:How long shall they kill our proph?
Speaker B:The passing of another Jamaican superstar, reggae dynamo Peter Tosh, one of the original winners, and passed away by the gun.
Speaker B:By the gun.
Speaker A:Glory to John, Let him be.
Speaker E:Praise.
Speaker A:The car is righteous he's governing the world.
Speaker B: The summer of: Speaker B:Deep, circular, repeating wisdom with every rotation.
Speaker B:I was 20 years old, working a once in a lifetime internship at Bob Marley's Tuff Gong Records under the guidance of reggae pioneer Bob Andy, who served as their creative director during a turbulent time for the company.
Speaker B:The studio complex on Marcus Garvey Drive stood both as a shrine and a laboratory.
Speaker B:A place that was the culmination of Bob Marley's dream.
Speaker B:And though he never lived to see it in its full glory, he had envisioned it long before his death.
Speaker B:During the sweltering afternoon lulls, when the tropical heat rendered the musicians temporarily sidelined, I discovered the true heartbeat of reggae music.
Speaker B:Music.
Speaker B:In a modest courtyard behind the main building, under the branches of a mango tree that witnessed generations of musical evolutions.
Speaker B:There I would find Bunny Dredd, the studio's elderly handyman and self proclaimed historian, with hands calloused from decades of labor and eyes that had witnessed the birth of reggae itself.
Speaker B:You think you know people because of their records, he challenged Enrique.
Speaker A:People think they know a singer because of a song and nothing.
Speaker B:His voice carried the melodic cadence that seemed embedded in the Jamaican soul.
Speaker B:He would take a long, contemplative Draw from his hand rolled splifa sense Amelia smoke rising like prayers into the thick afternoon air as he revealed stories about Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer that no documentary could capture.
Speaker B:Intimate moments of brotherhood and rivalry that illuminated the complex humanity behind their relationship and their music.
Speaker A:You really wanna know about Bob?
Speaker A:Peter and Bonnie Chanua star.
Speaker A:Take a draw for the spliff and relax yourself.
Speaker B:The creative tension between Marley and Tosh reflects other legendary rivalries that also produce transcendent art and social change.
Speaker B:Like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, they represented complementary creative forces.
Speaker B:McCartney's melodic accessibility and crowd pleasing sensibilities found parallels in Marley's universal appeal.
Speaker B:Lennon's uncompromising edge and intellectual provocations echoed in Tasha's confrontational style.
Speaker B:Both music partnerships produced their greatest work in the crucible of competition, pushing each other to heights neither might have reached alone.
Speaker B:You do not have a Bob Marley without a Peter Tosh, nor a Tosh without a Marley.
Speaker B:Their dynamic also reflected the philosophical tensions between civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker B:And Malcolm X.
Speaker B:King's approach about integration and measured rhetoric strategically brought mainstream audiences into revolutionary ideas, a template that Marley followed with remarkable success.
Speaker B:Tosh embodied Malcolm X with a militant stance, refusing to soften his message for palatability, speaking truth to power regardless of consequence.
Speaker B: ,: Speaker B:The concert represented a watershed moment in Jamaica's cultural history.
Speaker B:Marley, returning from exile, orchestrated one of music's most powerful and enduring moments during his performance of the song Jamming.
Speaker B:When he called rival political leaders Michael Manley and Edward Seaga to the stage, Marley joined their hands together above his head in unity, embodying his strategic vision of revolutionary change through universal connection.
Speaker B:Upstaged but not undone by his former bandmate, Peter Tosh also performed on the One Love Peace concert.
Speaker B:But after Tosh accused the cameramen of being pirates and filming him without his consent, they turned off their equipment so only the audio of his fiery performance remains.
Speaker D:Talking about pirates come from Mercal boat and with them camera and them TV business get rich off iron but hear me no man anywhere in the ends of the earth in the day I flash lightning so make sure to come give me some good argument about my rights.
Speaker B:That night, Peter Tosh delivered a starkly different message than Marley, taking the stage for a 66 minute set that included Tosh unleashing a blistering 8 minute, profanity laden condemnation of Jamaica's political establishment.
Speaker B:With Prime Minister Michael Manley and opposition leader Edward Siaga in the crowd, Tosh called them out by name, fearlessly criticizing police brutality.
Speaker D:Well, right now, you see this.
Speaker D:This system here, this colonial system, our rule, the underprivileged.
Speaker D:I am one of them who happen to be in the underprivileged sector, you know, saying hustled by police brutality.
Speaker D:Times and times again, I've run up and down for just have a little split number pocket.
Speaker D:You see, if the government.
Speaker D:Right now, Mr.
Speaker D:Manley, me go and talk to you personally.
Speaker D:Come, you can talk to you come here.
Speaker D:Use friends for yourself.
Speaker D:Well, right now, right now, as a man of power and a ruler of this little country here, not you alone, Mr.
Speaker D:Seaga too, we would like the members of Parliament must come together.
Speaker D:If not dealing with the people and the suffering.
Speaker D:Class car police still out there brutalized poor people for a little draw.
Speaker D:Herb saying.
Speaker B:Oh, he didn't stop there.
Speaker B:He continued on demanding marijuana legislation as a way to empower the poor, condemn the shitstom, as he repeatedly called them, right to their faces for oppressing ordinary Jamaican citizens.
Speaker D:Jamaica have been living under this colonial imperialistic situation for a long time.
Speaker D:See where irrespective of what's going on now and what government in power government have to know that you have a whole lot of evil forces to fight who don't like to see nothing progressive.
Speaker D:So learn that I and I have to set up this country here and eliminate all those shits them that black poor people don't live in confusion because hungry people are angry people.
Speaker D:I am not a politician, but I suffer the consequences, see?
Speaker B:With the crowd in full support, he smoked ganja on stage.
Speaker B:Then a criminal act, demonstrating an absolute commitment to his principles, regardless of the consequences.
Speaker B:And for Peter Tosh, there would be consequences.
Speaker B:On the 30th anniversary of the One Love Peace concert, the former Prime Minister Edward Siaga, then guest lecturer at the University of West Indies, wrote an article in the Jamaica Gleaner sharing his thoughts and recollections of that evening.
Speaker B:And I have to say, reading his recounting of that night stirs up a mix of emotions.
Speaker B:Melancholy, frustration, a sense of what might have been like a typical politician.
Speaker B:Edward Seaga, or Blind Dogga, as Peter liked to call him, is unable to celebrate even one magical moment in time without injecting some political angle or bias into the story, which I am going to read because so many Tosh insiders believe his performance at the One Love concert was the catalyst that placed Peter Tosh in Babylon's Crosshairs and made him wanted, dread or alive.
Speaker B:And remember back in 78 when Tosh performed at the One Love concert, Seaga was opposition leader.
Speaker B: ,: Speaker B:The Law of the land.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker B: Contributor the period of the: Speaker B:Every macroeconomic indicator moved in the wrong direction.
Speaker B:Inflation, fiscal deficit, money supply, international reserves, unemployment and economic growth.
Speaker B:This was opposite to the movement of the previous decade.
Speaker B: conomy worsened year by year,: Speaker B:The Michael Manley government was split into two factions, the radical left and the moderates.
Speaker B:The left, though fewer in number, were more powerful in influence, having captured Manly's COVID support.
Speaker B:The political outlook of Jamaicans also took a sharp turn away from support of the governing pnp.
Speaker B:Political violence worsened.
Speaker B:This was the inner city's way of expressing political positions.
Speaker B:Rival clashes were creating a nightmare for residents in inner city communities.
Speaker B: In early January: Speaker B:I was greeted with news that there was dancing and jubilation in the street at Pink Lane.
Speaker B:Why would there be street dancing in the day?
Speaker B:And why at Pink Lane, a nearby location to the hostile PNP stronghold of Matthews Lane?
Speaker B:I asked myself.
Speaker B:Hostilities usually force residents in that area to be as secluded as possible.
Speaker B:I was then told that Claudius Massopped of the Jamaican Labor Party and Bucky Marshall, a PNP counterpart to MassOP, had come together and decided there should be peace.
Speaker B:This was their own initiative, Initiative for Peace.
Speaker B:I made an impromptu public statement.
Speaker B:I described the event as a giant step for a happy new year, and I was proud to be a member of Parliament for a community whose members had shown such maturity in placing human relationship and brotherhood above political values.
Speaker B:At first the peace movement was confined to West Kingston, but soon after it spread to other communities engulfing the city.
Speaker B:A peace council was formed, and after a meeting among warring factions, a peace pact followed.
Speaker B:Government responded with some funding for the projects.
Speaker B:Expectedly, this would be insufficient to meet all the needs.
Speaker B:An idea emerged from the group that there should be a peace concert to cement the peace and raise more funds to highlight the event.
Speaker B:Bob Marley would be needed to head the show.
Speaker B:Although there were many other popular local artists, Bob was the star.
Speaker B:Claudius Massip was deputized to go to London and speak with Bob, who had been living there in self imposed exile since he was shot nearly two years earlier in what was an apparent assassination attempt.
Speaker B:At the time, Marley was touring several countries performing sold out venues.
Speaker B:Massop convinced Bob to return home for the show.
Speaker B: rrived in Jamaica in February: Speaker B:Meanwhile, much excitement was developing locally and abroad about the Peace concert and the presence of Bob Marley.
Speaker B:The idea was given full support by the governing PNP and opposition JLP.
Speaker B:It was scheduled for April 22 to mark the 12th anniversary of the visit of Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia.
Speaker B:Both Prime Minister Michael Manley and I, the opposition leader, would be present.
Speaker B: ,: Speaker B:In addition to several hundred seats on the football field for special guests.
Speaker B:The admission fee was set for a minimal amount.
Speaker B:As the concert progressed, the spirit of the spectacle was building.
Speaker B:The earlier acts were performing, each building greater excitement.
Speaker B:JLP and PNP supporters sat together in the stands.
Speaker B:All were there to share the greatest reggae concert ever.
Speaker B:Jacob Miller and the Inner Circle Band Big Youth Ross Michael and the Sons of Negus Culture the Mighty Diamonds.
Speaker B:It was a night of liberation of the spirit.
Speaker B:Rita Marley sang One Draw promoting Sense.
Speaker B:Amelia and Peter Tosh smoked a ganja stiff on while berating Manley and myself about oppression by the police.
Speaker B:The concert hit a fever pitch as Bob Marley appeared on stage to tumultuous cheers.
Speaker B:Bob opened with some of his favorites.
Speaker B:Lion of Judah, Trenchtown Rock War, Naughty Dread, Natural mystic and Jam.
Speaker B:Then the music toned down and improvising on jamming, Bob Marley spoke rhythmically because.
Speaker D:I Unite.
Speaker A:Political party Uniting.
Speaker B:The roar of the crowd was incredible as Manley and I rose from our seats and approached the stage.
Speaker B:Michael took the long way around leading to the steps of the stage.
Speaker B:Massip pulled me on the front of the stage.
Speaker B:On stage, Bob took Manley's left hand and my right hand.
Speaker B:He clasped them in his own hands and raised all three above his head.
Speaker B:At that historic moment, as hundreds of camera flashes lit the sky, Jamaica was one people, one nation.
Speaker B:The roar of the crowd was deafening and more tumultuous yet as he released our hands to strike the first chord of the song of the evening, the song of the century.
Speaker B:One love, one heart let's get together and feel alright Sticking together.
Speaker B:The Peace concert had an impact for a while.
Speaker B:But soon the gang members started to drift.
Speaker B:Especially after it was discovered that some of the money collected from the concert was missing.
Speaker B:Later, Bucky Marshall was shot and killed.
Speaker B:In New York.
Speaker B:Claudius Massip was executed by a detachment of special police who ambushed him on the corner of Industrial Terrace and Marcus Garvey Drive on the evening of February 4 while returning from a football match.
Speaker B:He and two of his companions were ordered to get out of the vehicle with their hands in the air.
Speaker B:A search was made of a vehicle and a revolver was found in the trunk.
Speaker B:After showing the gun to a man sitting in the back of the car across the road, the order was given to kill.
Speaker B:Massip was hit by 129 bullets, some in his armpits, indicating that his hands were in the air.
Speaker B:All three passengers were executed.
Speaker B:Executed.
Speaker B:No questions were asked.
Speaker B:None of the men, including Massip, were wanted by the police.
Speaker B:Massip was too popular with inner city youth of both parties.
Speaker B:He was distorting the political balance.
Speaker B:He had to be taken out.
Speaker B:Over the years, terrorism has become a political strategy of the state.
Speaker B:If the state can commit murder, who has the moral authority to dissuade others?
Speaker B:Women and children are now targets.
Speaker B:Schools are now forming violent gangs.
Speaker B:All the present strategies for peace seem to be failing.
Speaker B:Time to think out of the box.
Speaker B:Edward Siaga is a former Prime Minister.
Speaker B:He is now a distinguished fellow at the University of West Indies.
Speaker B: 's economic spiral during the: Speaker B:What he conveniently omits is his own party's involvement in creating that very crisis.
Speaker B:The Jamaican Labor Party, which Seaga led alongside CIA operations, orchestrated economic destabilization to undermine Michael Manley's government.
Speaker B:This deliberate economic sabotage that included manufacturing, food shortages and currency manipulation is now well documented by historians.
Speaker B:Yet Ciaga presents himself merely as a witness to this decline, rather than one of its architects.
Speaker B:What strikes me as both revealing and heartbreaking is the origin story of the peace concert itself.
Speaker B:In Siaga's own words, the peace initiative began not with politicians or church leaders, but with two rival gang Claudius Massop and Bucky Marshall.
Speaker B:These gangsters, killers hardened by years of political violence, somehow found the humanity within themselves that their political masters had long abandoned.
Speaker B:Imagine the moment two men who had orchestrated bloodshed on behalf of their political parties, deciding independently that enough was enough.
Speaker B:There is something deeply moving and simultaneously tragic about these gang enforcers traveling to London convince Bob Marley to return home.
Speaker B:Men who had been used as weapons in Jamaica's political warfare recognized their own exploitation before the politicians did.
Speaker B:They were in fact, sick of killing for the upper heads sick of watching their communities bleed for political gain.
Speaker B:The very men who had been demonized as the source of the violence were the ones who initiated the peace, while those in power remained inertia, silent.
Speaker B:The one love moment captured in that iconic photograph of Marley joining the hands of Manley and Seaga wasn't planned by politicians, but forced upon them by the very people they had armed and set against each other.
Speaker B:Peter Tosh's confrontation with both political leaders at that concert clearly left a mark on Siaga.
Speaker B:He mentions being berated alongside Manley about police oppression.
Speaker B:That this moment remained vivid in Syaga's memory three decades later speaks volumes.
Speaker B:And what Seaga's account barely hints at is the complete shock and fear that must have rippled through both political leaders as they witnessed Tash's raw, unfiltered power.
Speaker B:Imagine their discomfort as Tash, cannabis smoke curling around him like incense, spoke with a relaxed authority that neither politician could claim despite their official positions.
Speaker B:His humor disarmed, while his articulation left no room for misinterpretation.
Speaker B:He named their complicity in the suffering of ordinary Jamaicans with the calm certainty of someone speaking undeniable truth.
Speaker B:In that moment, both Michael Manley and Edward Seaga must have recognized something truly dangerous to their political machinery.
Speaker B:A man who could translate people's pain into both music and powerful rhetoric that resonated more deeply than their carefully crafted speeches.
Speaker B:The very system they represented trembled before Tasha's words.
Speaker B:Siaga's conclusion that terrorism has become political strategy of the state reads less as insight and more as a confession from someone who helped create the very system he now critiques.
Speaker B:It is no coincidence that shortly after that peace concert, Peter Tosh found himself arrested on a minor marijuana charge, his body broken by police batons in a jail cell, the very embodiment of what Seaga would call terrorism as a strategy of the state.
Speaker B:That beating wasn't about cannabis.
Speaker B:It was about retribution, about silencing a voice that could actually deliver on a promise to shake up the system.
Speaker B:How telling that in that attempt to crush Peter Tosh, the state only confirmed the truth of his indictment.
Speaker B:Here's music historian Roger Steffens describing the incident.
Speaker B:Also, you did mention that the beatings that Peter took.
Speaker E:I don't know how Peter survived the major one.
Speaker E:He was in a jail cell for 90 minutes.
Speaker E:Seven cops were beating him.
Speaker E:There's pictures I have in my archives of his skull broken open, and you can see his brain.
Speaker E:It was just horrendous what they did to him.
Speaker E:The Cops hated him because he was in their face so much and making public statements about their brutality and illegalities and using herb as a means of social control.
Speaker E:And it did not endear him to the powers that seemed.
Speaker B:While Peter would survive and his body would leave that cell, a piece of him was left behind, that fearless spark that made him untouchable.
Speaker B:His voice was still strong, but his spirit fractured, the damage from the beating irreversible.
Speaker B:When his old friend Bob Marley went to visit him in the hospital, witnesses say he broke down weeping at the sight of his brother in arms so brutally diminished.
Speaker B:Nine years later, bullets would finish what batons began.
Speaker B:But sometimes to understand a murder, you have to listen carefully.
Speaker B:Not to the gunshots, but to the whispers that follow the carefully constructed narrative by those with everything to lose should the truth emerge.
Speaker B: , we come face to face with a: Speaker B:On the next episode, a national security minister makes vague statements about drug trafficking gangs.
Speaker B:An unnamed police spokesman follows suit, murmuring disputes over the Marley estate.
Speaker B:Tantalizing red herrings dangled before a grieving public as possible motives for Tasha's murder.
Speaker B:But in their calculated ambiguity lies an unintended confession.
Speaker B:We will trace the official responses that, when viewed through a lens of history, reveal not incompetence, but something far more chilling.
Speaker B:The machinery of power protecting itself from the truth.
Speaker B:Peter Tosh lived and died to expose.
Speaker D:I and I have to set up this country here and eliminate all those team that black poor people don't live in confusion cause hungry people are angry people.
Speaker D:I am not a politician but I suffer the consequences.
Speaker D:See.
