Nesta Robert "Bob" Marley, OM (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers (1963–1981). Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited with helping spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience.[1]
Marley's music was heavily influenced by the social issues of his homeland, and he is considered to have given voice to the specific political and cultural nexus of Jamaica.[2] His best-known hits include "I Shot the Sheriff", "No Woman, No Cry", "Could You Be Loved", "Stir It Up", "Jamming", "Redemption Song", "One Love" and, together with The Wailers, "Three Little Birds",[3] as well as the posthumous releases "Buffalo Soldier" and "Iron Lion Zion". The compilation album Legend (1984), released three years after his death, is reggae's best-selling album, going ten times Platinum (Diamond) in the U.S.,[4]and selling 25 million copies worldwide.
Early life and career
Bob Marley was born in the village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica as Nesta Robert Marley.[7] A Jamaican passport official would later swap his first and middle names.[8] His father, Norval Sinclair Marley, was a white Jamaican of mixed and English descent whose family came from Essex, England. Norval was a captain in the Royal Marines, as well as a plantation overseer, when he married Cedella Booker, an Afro-Jamaican then 18 years old.[9] Norval provided financial support for his wife and child, but seldom saw them, as he was often away on trips. In 1955, when Marley was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age 60.[10] Marley faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his life. He once reflected:
I don't have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.[11]
Although Marley recognised his mixed ancestry, throughout his life and because of his beliefs, he self-identified as a black African, following the ideas ofPan-African leaders. Marley stated that his two biggest influences were the African-centered Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie. A central theme in Bob Marley's message was the repatriation of black people to Zion, which in his view was Ethiopia, or more generally, Africa.[12] In songs such as "Black Survivor", "Babylon System", and "Blackman Redemption", Marley sings about the struggles of blacks and Africans against oppression from the West or "Babylon".[13]
Marley became friends with Neville "Bunny" Livingston (later known as Bunny Wailer), with whom he started to play music. He left school at the age of 14 to make music with Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafari. At a jam session with Higgs and Livingston, Marley met Peter McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh), who had similar musical ambitions.[14] In 1962, Marley recorded his first two singles, "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", with local music producer Leslie Kong. These songs, released on the Beverley's label under the pseudonym of Bobby Martell,[15] attracted little attention. The songs were later re-released on the box set Songs of Freedom, a posthumous collection of Marley's work.
Personal life
Religion
- Interviewer: "Can you tell the people what it means being a Rastafarian?"
- Bob: "I would say to the people, Be still, and know that His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is the Almighty. Now, the Bible seh so, Babylon newspaper seh so, and I and I the children seh so. Yunno? So I don't see how much more reveal our people want. Wha' dem want? a white God, well God come black. True true."[34]
As observant Rastafari practice Ital, a diet that shuns meat, Marley was a vegetarian. According to his biographers, he affiliated with the Twelve Tribes Mansion. He was in the denomination known as "Tribe of Joseph", because he was born in February (each of the twelve sects being composed of members born in a different month). He signified this in his album liner notes, quoting the portion from Genesisthat includes Jacob's blessing to his son Joseph. Marley was baptised by the Archbishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Kingston, Jamaica, on 4 November 1980.
Final years and death
At the start of the European tour, Marley injured his toe playing football. In July 1977, he was found to have acral lentiginous melanoma, a form ofmalignant melanoma.[40] Despite his illness, he wished to continue touring and was in the process of scheduling a world tour in 1980. The intention was for Inner Circle to be his opening act on the tour but after their lead singer Jacob Miller died in Jamaica in March 1980 after returning from a scouting mission in Brazil this was no longer mentioned. The album Uprising was released in May 1980 (produced by Chris Blackwell), on whichRedemption Song is particularly considered to be about Marley coming to terms with his mortality.[42] The band completed a major tour of Europe, where they played their biggest concert, to a hundred thousand people in Milan. After the tour Marley went to America, where he performed two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of the Uprising Tour. Shortly afterwards, his health deteriorated and he became very ill; the cancer had spread throughout his body. The rest of the tour was cancelled and Marley sought treatment at the Bavarian clinic of Josef Issels, where he received a controversial type of cancer therapy partly based on avoidance of certain foods, drinks, and other substances. After fighting the cancer without success for eight months, Marley boarded a plane for his home in Jamaica.[43]
While flying home from Germany to Jamaica, in acceptance that he was going to die, Marley's vital functions worsened. After landing in Miami, Florida, he was taken to the hospital for immediate medical attention. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami (now University of Miami Hospital) on the morning of 11 May 1981, at the age of 36. The spread of melanoma to his lungs and brain caused his death. His final words to his son Ziggy were "Money can't buy life".[44] Marley received a state funeral in Jamaica on 21 May 1981, which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition.[45] He was buried in a chapel near his birthplace with his red Gibson Les Paul (some accounts say it was a Fender Stratocaster).[46]
On 21 May 1981, Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga delivered the final funeral eulogy to Marley, declaring:
His voice was an omnipresent cry in our electronic world. His sharp features, majestic looks, and prancing style a vivid etching on the landscape of our minds. Bob Marley was never seen. He was an experience which left an indelible imprint with each encounter. Such a man cannot be erased from the mind. He is part of the collective consciousness of the nation.[47]
Legacy
Bob Marley was the Third World’s first pop superstar. He was the man who introduced the world to the mystic power of reggae. He was a true rocker at heart, and as a songwriter, he brought the lyrical force of Bob Dylan, the personal charisma of John Lennon, and the essential vocal stylings of Smokey Robinson into one voice.
In 1999 Time magazine chose Bob Marley & The Wailers' Exodus as the greatest album of the 20th century.[49] In 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and a feature-length documentary about his life, Rebel Music, won various awards at the Grammys. With contributions from Rita, The Wailers, and Marley's lovers and children, it also tells much of the story in his own words.[50] A statue was inaugurated, next to the national stadium on Arthur Wint Drive in Kingston to commemorate him. In 2006, the State of New York renamed a portion of Church Avenue from Remsen Avenue to East 98th Street in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn "Bob Marley Boulevard".[51] In 2008, a statue of Marley was inaugurated in Banatski Sokolac, Serbia.[52]
Internationally, Marley’s message also continues to reverberate amongst various indigenous communities. For instance, the Aboriginal people of Australia continue to burn a sacred flame to honor his memory in Sydney’s Victoria Park, while members of the Native American Hopi and Havasupai tribe revere his work.[53] Additionally, for some in Nepal, Marley is considered to be an incarnation of theHindu God Vishnu.[53]
Marley has also evolved into a global symbol, which has been endlessly merchandised through a variety of mediums. In lieu of this, author Dave Thompson in his book Reggae and Caribbean Music, laments what he perceives to be the commercialized pacification of Marley's more militant edge, stating:
Bob Marley ranks among both the most popular and the most misunderstood figures in modern culture ... That the machine has utterly emasculated Marley is beyond doubt. Gone from the public record is the ghetto kid who dreamed of Che Guevara and the Black Panthers, and pinned their posters up in the Wailers Soul Shack record store; who believed in freedom; and the fighting which it necessitated, and dressed the part on an early album sleeve; whose heroes were James Brown and Muhammad Ali; whose God was Ras Tafari and whose sacrament was marijuana. Instead, the Bob Marley who surveys his kingdom today is smiling benevolence, a shining sun, a waving palm tree, and a string of hits which tumble out of polite radio like candy from a gumball machine. Of course it has assured his immortality. But it has also demeaned him beyond recognition. Bob Marley was worth far more.[54]
Film adaptation(s)
In February 2008, director Martin Scorsese announced his intention to produce a documentary movie on Marley. The film was set to be released on 6 February 2010, on what would have been Marley's 65th birthday.[55] Recently, however, Scorsese dropped out due to scheduling problems. He is being replaced by Jonathan Demme.[56]
In March 2008, The Weinstein Company announced its plans to produce a biopic of Bob Marley, based on the book No Woman No Cry: My Life With Bob Marley by Rita Marley. Rudy Langlais will produce the script by Lizzie Borden and Rita Marley will be executive producer.
Awards and honors
- 1976: Band of the Year (Rolling Stone).
- June 1978: Awarded the Peace Medal of the Third World from the United Nations.[53]
- February 1981: Awarded Jamaica's third highest honour, the Jamaican Order of Merit.
- March 1994: Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
- 1999: Album of the Century for Exodus by Time Magazine.
- February 2001: A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- February 2001: Awarded Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
- 2004: Rolling Stone ranked him No.11 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[58]
- "One Love" named song of the millennium by BBC.
- Voted as one of the greatest lyricists of all time by a BBC poll.[59]
- 2006: A blue plaque was unveiled at his first UK residence in Ridgmount Gardens, London, dedicated to him by Nubian Jak community trust and supported by Her Majesty's Foreign Office.[60]
- 2010: "Catch a Fire" inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame (Reggae Album).[61]
