Description

Peter Tosh made his solo debut a protest record, and he put the protest on the cover. The photograph shows Tosh crouching in a field of tall ganja plants, surrounded by the very thing the title says should be legal. It was shot in Bluefields, in Westmoreland, his home parish in Jamaica, at a time when Rastafarians could be harassed and prosecuted simply for smoking.

The photographer was Lee Jaffe, a New York artist who had travelled to Jamaica in 1972 for what was meant to be a two week trip after meeting Bob Marley, and stayed about five years. He played harmonica on Natty Dread, worked with the Wailers, and also produced Legalize It. Jaffe knew the subject "was a big issue" and that the album "would draw a lot of attention."

Columbia Records, which released the album in 1976, was apprehensive about putting a field of marijuana on the front of a major label record, but the executives eventually approved it. The cover created a stir, and that was the point. Recorded in Kingston with musicians including Aston and Carlton Barrett, Robbie Shakespeare and Tyrone Downie, with harmonies from Rita Marley and Judy Mowatt, Legalize It announced Tosh as a firebrand, and the image of him in his green field remains one of the boldest statements in reggae.

Credit

Photography by Lee Jaffe