Toots and The Maytals among Obama's 2023 summer playlist

July 20, 2023

Toots and The Maytals among Obama’s 2023 summer playlist

Iconic Reggae group Toots and The Maytals proves that great music will always have an audience after their track ‘Funky Kingston’ was listed among Barack Obama’s summer playlist of 2023.

The Reggae Band, was one of 40 curated acts across various genres to make the cut for the highly followed annual list of the former US President’s most liked tracks of the year.

“Funky Kingston” was the title track to their third album which was one of three projects to chart on the Billboard.

The project was originally released in Jamaica and the U.K. in 1972, with an alternate version of the album, released in the U.S. in 1975, as per Billboard.

Funky Kingston also set the tone for their cross over success into both the US and UK markets with the album also voted among Rolling Stone’s-500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The band won their second Grammy award in 2021 for their album titled “Got to Be Tough,” beating out the likes of Buju Banton-“Upside down 2020,” The Wailers-One World and Skip Marley-“Higher Place” for the accolade.

Lead singer Frederick “Toots” Hibbert passed away in September of 2020, with the band’s official social media page confirming that the singer “passed away peacefully” and was “surrounded by his family” during his transition “at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica.”