Toshi Reagon

I have a confession to make: I didn't quite get Toshi Reagon when I first heard her recordings. (Toshi fans – please bear with me.) The videos helped (and we have a real good one below). But I was told (emphatically) that I needed the live experience to get it. So on a cold, slushy January night in lower Manhattan, I trudged into a club, with admittedly not the best of attitudes. And then she obliterated the cold and the wet and the fatigue with the first notes out of her mouth. I felt like I stuck my forefinger into an electrical outlet and kept it there, with joy, throughout her entire set. Gospel, blues, rock and R&B – it's all there, and the distinctions are made meaningless as Toshi mashes genre into genre, making the most glorious and jubilant music this side of heaven. As Zippy the Pinhead says, "Enlightenment doesn't care how you get there".

Learn more about Toshi Reagon at toshireagon.com or download the program for her upcoming performance here.

Videos