‘Pressure Drop!’ Toots song featured in US beer commercial

NEW YORK:

Ska and reggae icon Frederick ‘Toots’ Hibbert, who passed away in Jamaica at the University Hospital of the West Indies on September 11, continues to make strides in the USA with his huge catalogue of hit songs. His classic, Pressure Drop, is now being used again in beer giant Coors latest TV commercial for their Light Beer.

“ Pressure Drop is a song about revenge but in the form of karma,” Toots told The Guardian newspaper in 2016. “If you do bad things to innocent people, then bad things will happen to you. The title was a phrase I used to say. If someone done me wrong, rather than fight them like a warrior, I would say, ‘The pressure is going to drop on you’,” he explained.

Pressure Drop was initially released in 1968. Leslie Kong produced the ska song which was included on the 1970 album, Monkey Man. The track was featured on the soundtrack of the classic film, The Harder They Come, which played a significant role in the international success Toots enjoyed. The song also made an appearance on the soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Pressure Drop garnered further acclaim in 2004 when it was included in Rolling Stone Magazine ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time.’

Toots, whose vocal styling has been compared to R&B great Otis Redding, was himself named among the ‘100 greatest singers’ of all times by the magazine.

HEROES PARK INTERMENT

On Sunday morning, the body of the reggae legend was interred at National Heroes Park in Kingston, exactly one month after a burial at Dovecot Memorial Park in St Catherine had to be abandoned because the burial order could not be found.

Toots’ body was interred next to that of another reggae icon, Dennis Emanuel Brown, in the last burial spot left in the area reserved in the park for the burial of cultural icons.

Last week, members of the public lined up to pay their last respects at two public viewings which were conducted under strict COVID-19 protocols.

The first viewing took place last Wednesday at the Anglican Church Hall, May Pen, Clarendon, Toots’ birth parish. The second took place on Friday, at the National Indoor Centre in Kingston.

The Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport produced a tribute concert, ‘Toots – Farewell to a Cultural Icon’ in his honour. It was broadcast live on PBCJ, and other broadcast media platforms, and was also streamed worldwide on several social media platforms on Sunday.