Today, legendary Jamaican artist Frederick “Toots” Hibbert returns with his first studio release in more than a decade. Got To Be Tough is an energizing provocation that renews the near six-decade career of the man who launched a new sound and genre with his 1968 release, Do The Reggay. The single comes with the welcomed news of a full-length Toots and The Maytals studio album release – of the same title as the single – set for global release via Trojan Jamaica/BMG Records on August 28.
“Got To Be Tough” is a reminder that through Toots’ creative veins run all the roots and shoots of the Black Diaspora. Blues, soul, r’n’b, funk, jazz, reggae, African griots – Toots honors, embodies and owns them. Throwing down an authoritative guide: how to survive and thrive among our earth challenges.
During a time of global social and political unrest, Toots’ welcomed return and voice couldn’t be more needed or necessary than ever. Harking back to the start of Ska, during the civil rights movement era in America and Jamaican independence in the 1960s, he has sung iconic truths such as “Monkey Man” and “54-46 Was My Number,” a wry but not bitter response to his unjust incarceration for ganja.
He hipped our heads in the 1970s with the dynamic pan-Africanism of “Funky Kingston” and the early warning message of “Pressure Drop”; re-defining soul with the “Toots In Memphis” LP in the 80s.
Toots has constantly evolved while staying uniquely the same. Produced by Toots himself, who also plays many of the instruments on this album, alongside Zak Starkey on guitar, drums from one half of Sly and Robbie, Sly Dunbar, percussion from Cyril Neville, and a mighty horn section arranged by Toots himself.
