Roots Archives Forum

Although I'm not a big Tosh fan, he is certainly under rated in the world of reggae compared to Bob Marley, Toots, Desmond Dekker and Dennis Brown. He rarely (if ever) compromised his music and remained tough as nails until the end. However, I don't think Tosh directly had that much of an influence on new ska and rock, and certainly not on dubstep (which is electronic dance music with a vaguely reggae feel, more in common with techno than dub). In fact, you could argue that rock was a bigger influence on Tosh, as he covered "The Letter" by The Box tops and "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry and much of his music did have some hard rock undertones (especially "Stepping Razor"). His short time on Rolling Stone records didn't amount to much, and I think it's wrong to give that too much importance (that is, reggae doesn't need the Rolling Stones' seal of approval, no matter what corporate rock journalists might say).