Without Marley, scholarship on this phenomenon would not exist in such magnitude as is the case today. Although Marley may have lived in a world that is different to the one we find ourselves in today, the reality is that the human problems he encountered were no different from the ones we experience in the 21st century.
It comes as no surprise because Marley spoke of the human condition. There are very few musicians in this present day that may claim to use their music to fight for causes that Marley may have fought for.
Marley did not only speak about love and unity among all mankind as seen in his song One Love. He also spoke about the sufferings of the world in his songs. This is what has made Marley not just relevant to his time but to ours as well. To understand Bob Marley the man, it is imperative not to solely listen to his music but also read biographies and watch documentaries that offer different perspectives of the man.
Although there are a number of them, I would strongly recommend the following:. Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. Become an author Sign up as a reader Sign in.
When Livingston and Tosh left for solo careers, Marley hired a new band and took center stage as singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist. He produced a string of politically charged albums that reflected the keen social consciousness that came to define his lyrics.
He wrote about the soaring unemployment, rationed food supplies and pervasive political violence he saw in Jamaica, which transformed him into an influential cultural icon. Though bullets grazed Bob and wife Rita Marley, they electrified a crowd of 80, people when both took to the stage with the Wailers. The gesture of defiant survival heightened his legend and further galvanized his political outlook, resulting in the most militant albums of his career.
A little history of Marley and his wife Rita: He married her at 21 she was a Sunday school teacher at the time and stayed married to her until his death. He adopted her daughter and they had four children together during their marriage.
Marley also had at least eight more children with eight different women. As celebrity endorsements go, it certainly seems like a perfect fit: Under the label Marley Natural, the reggae icon fronts a global marijuana brand. My dad would be so happy to see people understanding the healing power of the herb. In late , Forbes Magazine listed Marley as fifth on the list of the highest-earning dead celebrities.
In addition to Marley Natural, his family has also licensed brands of coffee, audio equipment, apparel and lifestyle goods. Of course, Marley has also sold more than 75 million albums in the past two decades.
Legend , a retrospective of his work, is the best-selling reggae album ever. More than 12 million copies have been sold internationally and several thousand new units sell every week. Marley died of cancer on May 11, in Miami. Credited as one of the great minds of the Scientific Revolution, here are a few interesting facts about the father of modern science. I n the s, Cedella moved to Kingston — the only place in Jamaica where any future of consequence could be realized.
She and her son made their home in a government tenant yard, a crowded area where poor people lived, virtually all of them black. The yard they settled in, Trench Town, was made up of row upon row of cheap corrugated metal and tar-paper one-room shacks, generally with no plumbing. It was a place where your dreams might raise you or kill you, but you would have to live and act hard in either case. These gangs evolved soon enough into a faction called Rude Boys — teenagers and young adults who dressed sharp, acted insolent and knew how to fight.
Kingston hated the Rude Boys, and police and politicians had vowed to eradicate them. It was music that gave a displaced population a way to tell truths about their lives and a way of claiming victory over daily misery, or at least of finding a respite. The commentary could be clever and merciless, and the music that Marley first began to play had the tempo to carry such sharp purposes.
But the Rude Boys would soon receive an unexpected jolt of validation. C edella Marley was worried that her son had grown too comfortable with ghetto life and was too close to the Rude Boys.
There were frequent fights, even stabbings, in the Trench Town streets and at ska dances. Marley, though small and slight, was known as a force in Trench Town. He even had a street name: Tuff Gong. But he had no aspiration for a criminal life. The group spent considerable time sharpening its vocal harmonies with singer Joe Higgs. Dodd recorded the tune the next day with his best studio musicians, the Skatalites, and that same night he played the record at one of his sound-system affairs.
It was an immediate sensation, and for good reason: For the first time, a voice from the ghetto was speaking to others who lived in the same straits, acknowledging their existence and giving voice to their troubles, and that breakthrough had a transformative effect, on both the scene and on Marley and his group, who would call themselves the Wailing Wailers and, finally, the Wailers.
The name was meant to describe somebody who called out from the ghetto — a sufferer and witness. Marley had already found one of the major themes that would characterize his songwriting through his entire career. Marley had eyes for other women during this time — he always would — but he was drawn to Anderson for her devotion as a mother.
He missed his wife and home. According to a persistent myth, Garvey instructed his followers in to look to Africa for the crowning of a black king, as a sign that a messiah was at hand. In point of fact, Garvey never uttered such a prophecy, but the claim remains attributed to him to this day. In , when a young man named Ras Tafari maneuvered his way onto the throne of Ethiopia, the prophecy that Garvey never proclaimed took on the power of the word made flesh for many.
In Jamaica, a cult called Ras Tafari sprang up around this belief in the s. Rastafarianism developed as a mystical Judeo-Christian faith with a vision of Africa, in particular, Ethiopia, as the true Zion. The Rastafarians never had a true doctrine but rather a set of folk wisdoms and a worldview.
One of their beliefs was that marijuana — which the Rastas called ganja — was a sacramental herb that brought its users into a deeper knowledge of themselves. More important, Rastas had an apocalyptic vision. Accordingly, Rastas believed that Babylon must fall — though they would not themselves raise up arms to bring its end; violence belonged rightfully to God.
Until Babylon fell, according to one legend, the Rastas would not cut their hair. They grew it long in a fearsome appearance called dreadlocks. In , while Marley was visiting his mother in Delaware, Selassie made an official state visit to Jamaica. He was met at the Kingston Airport by a crowd of , According to some accounts, he adopted the religion soon after his return to Jamaica, as early as or In turn, his faith would help Marley find new depths in his music.
T he timing could not have been better. In and , as Marley and the Wailers began recording again, the Jamaican music scene was undergoing another critical change. Ska had slowed its beat — life in Kingston was growing grimmer, and there was less interest in dancing to exuberant music.
By , though, ska and rock steady had given way altogether to a sound that was fluid and resilient enough to incorporate both faster and slower rhythms. This new style was called reggae, for its ragged cadence, and its lilting and mesmeric quality seemed especially suited for new dimensions of storytelling and social commentary.
Most important, reggae was allowing room for other previously precluded voices. Marley took to reggae. It gave him new vision and ambition: He wanted to make music that would satisfy and represent his homeland but that would also reach a larger world outside. The resulting work, Catch a Fire , was a landmark: It was the first wholly formed, cohesive reggae album, and it immediately cast Marley into the artistic big leagues for many critics.
The record, however, sold marginally. In short, Bob Marley became a considerable and widely recognized force, and numerous other artists during the s — from Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder to Elvis Costello and the Police — would reflect his influence by following through on some of the possibilities that his music was creating.
The conservative JLP was more ruthless. By , Bob Marley was recognized by both parties as a force to contend with. He had been friendly with Manley over the years, though as new elections approached in December, Marley professed neutrality about the race.
Politicians, he said, were of the devil. Each party, though, believed it could be helped or hurt by Marley. As the election neared, violence was out of control; Kingston had become so tense that people were staying home from work and off the streets. But while he professed no favorite in the race, there was a widespread perception that Marley wanted to see Manley become the next prime minister.
According to various accounts, Marley received several threats as the concert approached — including a supposed warning from the CIA.
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