Concerts

Enjoy music of emancipation with Toussaint the Liberator in Medford

The 'minister of music' from Jamaica Plain will free musical minds and souls at The Porch on Dec. 17.

Toussaint Liberator led a drum circle in Franklin Park during a vigil and rally against police brutality and support of Jacob Blake. The event was hosted by PSL Boston - Party for Socialism and Liberation and began in Nubian Square. Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe

By Blake Maddux

1 minute to read

Toussaint the Liberator is the stage name of Kokomo, Ind. native Paul Barrett. The moniker brings to mind Toussaint Louverture, the general who led the Haitian revolt against French colonial rule that brought about the end of slavery in the nation.

This, in turn, provides a connection to a statement that Toussaint makes on his website: “‘From Slave to Soldier’ has become a mantra for me and has become a constant reminder of what I must do day in and day out … It means that I don’t want to be a slave. I don’t even necessarily want to be a soldier. But I must be.”

Toussaint’s mother was the choir director at the Baptist church at which his father was the pastor. “We were in church eight days a week,” he said in a Wall Street Journal profile by rock and pop music critic Jim Fusilli. After moving to Massachusetts in the early 2000s, Toussaint spent time as the leader of the Red Pill and The China Band, the latter of whom released the album “Love the Almighty High” in 2005.

In 2007, he joined Soulive for “No Place Like Soul,” the first album by the long-running funk/jazz trio to feature vocals. He subsequently joined the group on the road for a tour that included opening-act gigs for the Dave Matthews Band and The Rolling Stones.

Fusilli wrote of Toussaint’s 2010 solo album, “’Black Gold’ works as a cross-cultural exercise and can be seen as an acknowledgement of the roots of reggae in American R&B and sinewy post-bob jazz.”

Toussaint currently serves as Minister of Music at the First Baptist Church of Jamaica Plain. His Dec. 17 show at The Porch is part of a monthly residency that began this past April and is scheduled to run up through May 2022.