Toots Hibbert’s Label Honors the Late Reggae Legend’s Birthday in New Video

Trojan Jamaica, the label that recently released Toots and the Maytals’ album Got to Be Tough, dropped a video Tuesday in honor of the late reggae legend’s birthday.

The clip features the making of Got to Be Tough, including interviews with Hibbert, producer Zak Starkey, and his partner and label co-founder Sharna Sshh Liguz. “He invented the word reggae in a song called ‘Do the Reggay,’” Starkey said. “It’s his genre.”

The clip closes with a message from Toots’ daughter, Leba Hibbert, who thanked fans and the Grammys for the Best Reggae Album nomination. “Got to Be Tough is such a prophetic title for an album in these times we’re living in,” she said. “Unity’s strength is what my father always says, and that’s the only way we’re going to win.”

Hibbert would have been 78 on December 8th. He died in September due to Covid-19 complications. A month before his death, he was featured in a IndieLand profile by editor Jason Fine. “He’s bigger than reggae,” Fine recalled in a tribute. “He’s one of the great voices of soul music. And it was heartbreaking to learn that after all he’d been through, for him to get sick at that moment, is really tragic. But I’m glad [that] during the last part of his career, he was making new music, and he felt a lot of love.”