The
museum hosted a soft launch on Oct. 19, Tosh's birthday, with media and
invited guests given the chance to view the museum's exhibitions,
photos and artifacts from the revolutionary musician's life. Those
include his M-16 rifle shaped guitar -- a gift Tosh received in 1983
from a teenaged fan while on tour in California -- and his Grammy award
for Best Reggae Album, awarded posthumously in 1988 for No Nuclear War.
The museum is a partnership between Pulse Investments and Andrea Marlene Brown
(Tosh's common law wife at the time of his Sep. 11, 1987 murder) and
the Peter Tosh Estate, now administered by Tosh's daughter Niambe McIntosh and managed by music industry veteran Brian Laturre. Located in the capital city's New Kingston business district, the museum was designed by Chicago's Art On the Loose, with Jamaica's Dr. Donna McFarlane as consulting curator.
Several
days of Peter Tosh-related activities surrounded the Oct. 19 debut,
capped by a commemorative concert on October 22 with marquee Jamaican
acts including millennial sing-jay Chronixx, vocalist Luciano,
and Tosh' s son Andrew performing Tosh's songs backed by original
members of Word, Sound and Power. "My father's name resonates with
different people all over the world, lawyers, doctors, Rastas," Niambe
observes, "so whatever the estate does has to reflect his vision, and we
have barely scratched the surface for the potential of his brand."
A founding member of The Wailers (alongside Bunny Wailer and the late Bob Marley), Tosh was the first artist signed to Rolling Stones Records, unanimously chosen by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ron Wood. Tosh's 1978 debut for the label, Bush Doctor, featured "Don't Look Back," a duet with Jagger, which they performed on Saturday Night Live;
in the show's second performance segment Tosh sang "Bush Doctor," its
opening words "legalize marijuana" said to be the first ganja
championing lyrics broadcast on US television.
Around
that time, "Peter had just completed the Mama Africa world tour, he had
the hit 'Johnny Be Good' and was the reggae's world ambassador, nobody
was bigger," Pulse Investments chairman Kingsley Cooper tells Billboard.
"About 15 years ago, Marlene Brown asked me to preserve some of Peter's
belongings; some items had been stolen and there was danger of more
disappearing, so the museum idea came from that... but it couldn't have
happened without the Peter Tosh Estate." Cooper continued: "Tosh had ten
children, so there were many negotiations among family members over
time, but we signed an agreement in January 2016 and moved forward from
there."
"We
will be working with the Jamaican government and marketing through
various travel and music channels to make the museum part of the
country's tourism destinations. We also want to create partnerships with
schools so children can learn that Peter Tosh was a powerful advocate
for disadvantaged people everywhere," Niambe McIntosh, Peter's youngest
child, tells Billboard. A Boston-based educator, Niambe is now
transitioning into a full-time role as the Tosh Estate administrator and
global brand ambassador, overseeing numerous endeavors including the
structuring of the non-profit Peter Tosh foundation, various merchandise
and licensing deals and a forthcoming feature film about her father,
produced by Cowboy Films and directed by Kevin Macdonald, director of the 2012 Marley biopic.
"Peter Tosh was the original ambassador for the current legalization movement," says Tosh Estate manager Brian Laturre, also Chief Executive Manager of Peter Tosh 420, a joint (naturally) venture between the Tosh Estate and Steven Trenk,
CEO of Lizada Capital established to facilitate the movement of legal
cannabis. The Peter Tosh 420 brand will include multiple organically
grown marijuana strains, cannabis products and ancillary merchandise.
"We
are seeking a foundational line of Jamaica ganja strains because we
don't want the Jamaican farmer undermined by the capitalization of a
natural, agricultural product but what that will look like from the
standpoint of import/export depends on future legislation," Laturre
states.
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