ttgapers.com

Dancehall stars Vybz Kartel and Mavado have since April 2009, usurped the great reggae legend Peter Tosh in terms of Internet searches, a measure of online popularity. In previous years Peter Tosh was more popular in internet searches that any dancehall artist. Currently, for every 100 searches for Vybz Kartel there were 63 for Tosh. Google Trends was used to compile the figures.

Mavado has an advantage over Tosh of two more searches per 100. These two deejays are the latest to usurp Tosh following Sizzla, Shaggy, Sean Paul and Damian “Junior Gong” Marley. On the flip side, Bob Marley is so popular online that for every 100 searches for Bob Marley there are a paltry and meager 26 for Sean Paul and a miserly three for Tosh.

Despite the fall in dominance Peter Tosh is still comparatively very popular and towers over most other reggae and dancehall stars. He is three searches more popular than the King Of Dancehall Beenie Man per 100 and is three times more popular online than Bounty Killer, Dennis Brown and Beres Hammond. Hammond however is more popular in New York.

The late Peter Tosh, is arguably the most important reggae star after the late Bob Marley, but while Marley dominates the charts and has an incomparable online popularity, this posthumous success still eludes the great Stepping Razor. Jam Inc said it received the rights to manage the Tosh estate last year on behalf of Tosh’s children, the estate’s owners. Jam Inc a nine-year-old company also manages the estates of rock icons such as the Doors and Janis Joplin.

Jam Inc will release a Tosh album next year and is currently focusing on building an official website and creating pages on Facebook, Myspace and other social networking sites. It will also align Tosh’s image and philosophy with human rights organisations in an effort to raise publicity.