“Oh, that voice...devotees know they’ve born witness to one of the great voices of this generation.” —Village Voice

“Toshi is one of those rare artists who can touch your heart and mind at the same time. You marvel at her incredible technical skills, while also embracing the pure, often raw emotion she pours into her every song. She truly is extraordinary.” —Larry Flick, Billboard

“Toshi is riddled with funk “n” soul, passion “n” power. And the songs have not only smart lyrics but melodies that make your body move.” —Dan Aquilante, New York Post 4/02

“Toshi Reagon has been called a Black female Neil Young... Like Young, Reagon’s music ranges far and wide, from uplifting folk to gritty, soulful rock.” —New York Newsday 5/02

“...Toshi’s a natural born rock goddess whose sound is a cipher of bluesy wails and shouts, and steely guitar power chords.” —Vibe 7/02

“...Toshi Reagon’s powerful voice shines.” —Vanity Fair 6/02

“...the dynamic Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely... nearly blew the roof off with her funk-driven sound rich with lyrics about kindness, compassion, and peace and love. In short, what Newport [Folk Festival] is all about.” —The Boston Globe 8/7/00

“Fierce and uncompromising...a shower of retro funk, urban blues, and folk...to hear her is to believe.“ —New Yorker 1/02

Toshi Reagon’s “driving rhythm guitar and the punch of her funky, inspired band...fire[s] up her set. She and her band wereunstoppable when they settled into furious grooves.” —Variety 7/24/00

“...one of the most compelling performers on the modern-rock scene.“ —NY Times 7/23/00

“If Reagon made any miscalculation, it was stating that the changes she hopes to bring are subtle. She might be underestimating her own potential.” —Los Angeles Times 2/10/00

“Leading her band, Reagon is a fierce, charismatic guitar player who grinds out bittersweet blues as easily as euphoric rock.” —Acoustic Guitar 1/00

USA Today, May 28, 2002

Toshi, 3.5 Stars

Reagon has always been impossible to categorize.The guitarist fuses elements of folk, rock, pop and gospel in socially conscious anthems and heartfelt ballads. Reagon, daughter of Sweet Honey in the Rock matriarch Bernice Johnson Reagon, makes searing political statements without sounding shrill. Instead, her warm vocals invite you to listen whether you agree or not. On songs of the heart, such as the bluesy “Big Love” or the slightly regretful “Slippin’ Away,” her emotions cut straight to the soul. With the help of producer Craig Street, a frequent Cassandra Wilson collaborator, Reagon has created an engaging and remarkably distinct sound. —Steve Jones

Vibe

Toshi, 3.5 Stars

Ain’t no shame in Toshi Reagon’s black-rock game. Raised on gospel and the blues by her mother, Bernice Johnson Reagon (founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock), and turned out by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and KISS,Toshi’s a natural-born rock goddess whose sound is a cipher of bluesy wails and shouts, and steely guitar power chords. Produced by Craig Street, Reagon’s self-written album, Toshi, is 13 tracks worth of soul-funk-swerved, déjê vu-dusted rock.

Toshi is one helluva rock’n’roller-coaster ride, careening giddily from the ominous war dance of “Ballad of the Broken Word” to the Fleetwood Mac-ing country rock of “Mountain Top” to the buzz-saw guitar snarl of “I Hate/I Love” (“I hate when it’s tragic/I love when it’s my way”).While these tracks alone make Toshi a fine record,“You Are the Only One”—a Bob Marleychanneling, soul-reggae shuffle—and a lubricious reinvention of the Cars’ “Just What I Needed” (a duet with Chocolate Genius) lift the album to greatness. Sweet rock in a hard place.

TimeOut New York, Issue 343:April 25—May 2, 2002

Toshi (Razor & Tie)

Summoning both a church-pulpit fervor and rock-god guitar solos,Toshi Reagon’s trademark has always been her ability to merge diverse textures. On her self-titled fourth release, the songwriter, singer and guitarist continues to blend gospel and blues with Hendrixesque wails and catchy pop riffs.

The Brooklyn-based Reagon drives this motley mixture home with uplifting, inspirational messages—a sensibility she no doubt inherited from her mother, Bernice Johnson Reagon, founder of the a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock and a civil rights-era Freedom Singer. While they share common feelings about social inequities, Reagon updates her mother’s ’60s-style call to action with more universal missives: In “Little Light,” she says, simply, “Fight for your right to be somebody.”

This theme of self-empowerment reappears in “Mountaintop,” where Reagon and her band, BigLovely, stack layer upon layer of rising blues choruses, which, by the song’s close, explode euphorically. Potent vocal arrangements also serve to propel her simple, declarative messages.Where Reagon’s prose lacks complexity, she uses a slow-burning lyrical repetition to infuse her songs with feeling. The technique is applied to great effect on her “Ballad of the Broken Word,” an a cappella gospel lament which first appeared on a Sweet Honey record in 1993 and which she reclaims by adding smoldering electric guitars and rumbling background vocals.

Beyond the rafter-shaking numbers, this disc also gives us glimpses into Reagon’s quiet, amorous side. One of the best cuts on this set is its most serene offering, “Big Love,” featuring the charming plucks of Catherine Russell’s mandolin and Reagon’s heartfelt, vulnerable vocals.The singer also reinterprets the Cars’ “Just What I Needed,” replacing its giddy beat with a soulful yearning. But despite its patchwork of sounds and settings, the CD never feels like a mishmash: Reagon is always compelling, whether she’s slinging through a macho rock groove or strumming to gentle words of devotion. —Karen Iris Tucker

Interview, May 2002

Toshi (Razor & Tie)

NewYork’s best-kept secret plays a righteous brand of rock flavored with a pinch of granola and hearings of soul.These songs of love and hate are sung with no-nonsense wisdom. One spin of this disc and you, too, will feel like you’re on the kind of first name basis Toshi’s growing cult of fans already enjoys. —Ray Rogers

The New Yorker, November 15, 1999

Reaganomics

During a recent performance of some songs from her new album, The Righteous Ones, the Brooklyn-based singer Toshi Reagon, whose mother is Bernice Johnson Reagon of Sweet Honey in the Rock, paused between numbers to name three artists whose music she’d want along if she were stuck on a desert island.“My mother’s, of course, and Bob Marley, and Joni Mitchell. If I could have another one,” she added, with a laugh,“it’d be Metallica.” She and her seven-piece band, BigLovely, showered the audience with a wild mixture of funk, urban blues, and folk, building to fierce crescendos during which Reagon wailed and swung her head in hypnotic circles.“When you enter a Toshi Reagon show,” she likes to tell the audience,“you are mine.You will leave a little different.”