Here is some more background info, posted by Tammy Beveridge on Tosh’s Facebook page: link
Many journalists report that Tosh was arrogant, even hostile but in contrast he could be extremely polite, congenial and humorous. He was a poet of the people, easy to smile and quick to make some play on words, changing them around, like saying, ‘the shity’ instead of ‘the city’, or Asadica’ instead of ‘America’, for he said that there was nothing merry about it. Once, expounding on the possible negative connotation of disco and the letter “d” while entertaining a few friends in his New York hotel suite, he quipped, “ ‘d’ is for devil, disco, demon, dangerous, deception, dagger, depression, disruptive, deprive,” and on and on, laughing heartily along with everyone who joined in with their ‘Ds.’
His best friend KD says, “Tosh was a mystic man, a revolutionist, a soldier, a peaceful man. Listen to his songs. His spirit lives on. A stylish Libra man, Tosh appeared most often with his welder’s dark glasses and Che Guevara-type beret, sometimes wearing his martial arts gi outfit for he practiced African martial arts. Many call Peter Tosh the Malcolm X of reggae music.
Peter’s uncompromising stance sometimes led to conflict with lawyers and record companies. These problems coupled with his frequent dreams and visions of vampires standing over his body watching his life force ebb away forced him to seek psychic and magical protection. In the movie RED X, an autobiographical view of Tosh’s life spoken in his own words from tapes he had begun recording in 1983, he speaks of visions that tell of the devil trying to blind him when he was five years old by causing him to run into a barbed wire that stuck into both eyelids near his eyeballs. It was a sign to him that the devil wanted to blind him so he would not be able to see the hypocrisy of the day and could not tell the world what he knew. He knew the devil wanted him. He knew he was going to die as the words in many of his songs testify. In Lessons in My Life he talks of being careful of your friends, and in Maga Dog, he sings “sorry for maga dog, he’ll turn around and bite you,” and in yet another song he proclaims, “coming in hot, hot, hot, firing shot, shot, shot.”
This constant need to escape the vampires grew more intense after he met Marlene Brown, a woman from the hills “back’a yard,” who called herself a spiritual healer. Some called her an obeah woman, one who knew certain magical methods. Peter allowed her to take complete control of his life, alienating him from family and friends, becoming his business partner as well as his common-law wife. From 1983 until his assassination, September 11, 1987, Peter had not been in touch with his family and many of his long time friends. Many only knew what his activities were through rumor and hearsay of what Marlene was saying or doing. No one could reach him by telephone because she would answer the phone and say he “was resting” and could not come to the phone or simply that he was unavailable. During these years he once told his chiropractor that he was protected from duppys and vampires because he knew about obeah, but the Rasta elder, Mortimo Planno warned in the RED X film, “If you fear the duppy, you draw the duppy to you.”
Even as a teenager, Tosh had constant visions of vampires holding him down. He could only get them off of him by saying ‘BOMBA CLAAT.’ Only then would they disappear. Later he made a song singing only the words bomba claat and raas claat, two forbidden curse words in Jamaican patois. Once again Tosh was being the rebel, doing the unexpected, the unorthodox, even shocking.
By 1984, Peter had developed an ulcer. He traveled to Africa seeking out a medicine man to help him overcome the ulcer and to get something to protect him from bullets. According to the story as told by Copeland Forbes, his manager at the time, the medicine man gave Tosh a cloth with specific instructions and a warning to never let another person touch it nor wear it. As the story goes he had Tosh put the cloth over his body and as Peter stood, his body in the stance of a cross, allegedly the bush doctor fired a shot at Peter and the bullet grazed but did not penetrate the cloth. Once back in Jamaica, Copeland went to Peter and Marlene’s house on Plymouth Avenue and noticed that Marlene was wearing the cloth. He ran out of the house and into the yard to tell Peter who was feeding his birds. Peter rushed back into the house and snatched the cloth away from Marlene. It is said that on the night of the gun fire that took the lives of Peter Tosh, Jeff ‘Free I’ Dixon and Wilton (Doc) Brown, Marlene had the cloth on. She was shot, the bullet grazed her scalp, but she was not hurt.
Many journalists report that Tosh was arrogant, even hostile but in contrast he could be extremely polite, congenial and humorous. He was a poet of the people, easy to smile and quick to make some play on words, changing them around, like saying, ‘the shity’ instead of ‘the city’, or Asadica’ instead of ‘America’, for he said that there was nothing merry about it. Once, expounding on the possible negative connotation of disco and the letter “d” while entertaining a few friends in his New York hotel suite, he quipped, “ ‘d’ is for devil, disco, demon, dangerous, deception, dagger, depression, disruptive, deprive,” and on and on, laughing heartily along with everyone who joined in with their ‘Ds.’
His best friend KD says, “Tosh was a mystic man, a revolutionist, a soldier, a peaceful man. Listen to his songs. His spirit lives on. A stylish Libra man, Tosh appeared most often with his welder’s dark glasses and Che Guevara-type beret, sometimes wearing his martial arts gi outfit for he practiced African martial arts. Many call Peter Tosh the Malcolm X of reggae music.
Peter’s uncompromising stance sometimes led to conflict with lawyers and record companies. These problems coupled with his frequent dreams and visions of vampires standing over his body watching his life force ebb away forced him to seek psychic and magical protection. In the movie RED X, an autobiographical view of Tosh’s life spoken in his own words from tapes he had begun recording in 1983, he speaks of visions that tell of the devil trying to blind him when he was five years old by causing him to run into a barbed wire that stuck into both eyelids near his eyeballs. It was a sign to him that the devil wanted to blind him so he would not be able to see the hypocrisy of the day and could not tell the world what he knew. He knew the devil wanted him. He knew he was going to die as the words in many of his songs testify. In Lessons in My Life he talks of being careful of your friends, and in Maga Dog, he sings “sorry for maga dog, he’ll turn around and bite you,” and in yet another song he proclaims, “coming in hot, hot, hot, firing shot, shot, shot.”
This constant need to escape the vampires grew more intense after he met Marlene Brown, a woman from the hills “back’a yard,” who called herself a spiritual healer. Some called her an obeah woman, one who knew certain magical methods. Peter allowed her to take complete control of his life, alienating him from family and friends, becoming his business partner as well as his common-law wife. From 1983 until his assassination, September 11, 1987, Peter had not been in touch with his family and many of his long time friends. Many only knew what his activities were through rumor and hearsay of what Marlene was saying or doing. No one could reach him by telephone because she would answer the phone and say he “was resting” and could not come to the phone or simply that he was unavailable. During these years he once told his chiropractor that he was protected from duppys and vampires because he knew about obeah, but the Rasta elder, Mortimo Planno warned in the RED X film, “If you fear the duppy, you draw the duppy to you.”
Even as a teenager, Tosh had constant visions of vampires holding him down. He could only get them off of him by saying ‘BOMBA CLAAT.’ Only then would they disappear. Later he made a song singing only the words bomba claat and raas claat, two forbidden curse words in Jamaican patois. Once again Tosh was being the rebel, doing the unexpected, the unorthodox, even shocking.
By 1984, Peter had developed an ulcer. He traveled to Africa seeking out a medicine man to help him overcome the ulcer and to get something to protect him from bullets. According to the story as told by Copeland Forbes, his manager at the time, the medicine man gave Tosh a cloth with specific instructions and a warning to never let another person touch it nor wear it. As the story goes he had Tosh put the cloth over his body and as Peter stood, his body in the stance of a cross, allegedly the bush doctor fired a shot at Peter and the bullet grazed but did not penetrate the cloth. Once back in Jamaica, Copeland went to Peter and Marlene’s house on Plymouth Avenue and noticed that Marlene was wearing the cloth. He ran out of the house and into the yard to tell Peter who was feeding his birds. Peter rushed back into the house and snatched the cloth away from Marlene. It is said that on the night of the gun fire that took the lives of Peter Tosh, Jeff ‘Free I’ Dixon and Wilton (Doc) Brown, Marlene had the cloth on. She was shot, the bullet grazed her scalp, but she was not hurt.
