Bob Marley was, is, and will remain one of the main icons of the contemporary world. He was a superstar of Reggae and a Rastafarian prophet.
Robert Nesta Marley was born February 6, 1945 in St. Ann, son of a white captain of the navy and a black Jamaican peasant.
Bob Marley recorded his first song, Judge Not, at age 16 in 1961. In 1964, he formed the Wailing Wailers with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer. Their first title, Simmer Down, will be the tube of 1961 in Jamaica. In the late '60s, the Wailers became the first Jamaican band to promote a popular philosophy. The Wailers embarked on a long musical and spiritual journey, creating an original cultural movement with influence like no other Reggae artists. Soon, most Reggae stars became Rastafarians and, in turn, Reggae became the main vehicle for the expression of Rastafarian culture and its demands.
Singers like Marley became revolutionary workers and representatives of the poor of Kingston, to whom their messages were broadcast through the radio, to all the homes on the island.
"Them belly full weekends to hungry / A hungry mob is an angry mob / A rain a fall to the dirt is tough / A cook pot but the food no 'nough." By these simple words Marley made Jamaican people aware of political issues.
He attacked the skinocratic system of Jamaica, which placed Whites at the top of the social ladder, Mulattoes in the middle, and Blacks at the bottom.
In 1967, Marley left Kingston and returned to his hometown of St. Ann mountain. For a year, Bob adopted the Rastafarian lifestyle. When he returned to Kingston at the end of 1968, he continued to sing the liberation music which made him famous.
Ironically, Marley was isolated when the world changed, when youth expressed their anger and its desire for something new.
The first songs by Bob Marley with religious connotations appeared in 1968. For Marley, as for many Rastas, Blacks are a lost tribe of Israel. They consider themselves the true Jews... While some extremist Rastas (the Nyabinghi sect) believe that the white oppressor has to be eliminated, most Rastas refuse to bear arms. Rastas believe in the spiritual strength and power of the elements: earthquakes, thunder, lightning. According to the biblical precept, Rastas are forbidden to eat while others starve. They live communally, sharing and exchanging goods for services.
In the mid-'60s, because of new outbreaks of violence in the ghettos of West Kingston, police and the government expelled the Rastas, burning their houses and putting them on the street. At the height of the crackdown, police destroyed the headquarters of Black o'wall, an area of the slum where many Rastas lived in huts made of wood and tin. At dawn, when the population was asleep, police arrived at the head of a convoy of bulldozers to raze the place. Those episodes inspired many reggaemen.
In 1972, during the months preceding the elections, Prime Minister Hugh Shearer, leader of the Jamaican Labour Party, decided to prohibit the broadcasting of songs on the Rasta radios. Although Marley was forbidden to engage in politics ("Sing Me No politics, after I sing freedom"), he became an electoral force to be reckoned with.
He died prematurely in 1981, having transformed Jamaican popular music into a major movement. A rare phenomenon, Bob Marley was adored by the general public, and by the most demanding connoisseurs, who discovered Reggae thanks to him.
