2020 has been a year filled with a lot of difficult challenges: a global pandemic, massive wild fires and heavy rainfall due to climate change, and a reckoning on racial inequality, particularly as it relates to policing. These are just some of the things that immediately come to mind when thinking about the year on a whole; but what about the people we have lost as result of the aforementioned?
Here in Jamaica we are still in shock after the passing of one of our musical icon, Toots Hibbert – the lead vocalist for the reggae and ska band Toots and the Maytals. Hibbert died on September 11, 2020, at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, after suffering from respiratory problems associated with covid-19.
Toots Hibbert is a reggae pioneer who has performed for approximately six decades. He is someone who played a major role in establishing some of the fundamentals of the reggae music genre. Now a petition to have him added to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is being passed around and we’re hoping that all reggae music enthusiasts would take a second to sign it.
