While many of his songs were localised, this famous number was a missive to the whole world for unity and peace. The words were in part taken from a speech that the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I, the Rastafarian guru, had made in an address to the United Nations.
The words, though altered, ring true for the world, especially in light of the global conflicts petering in the horizon. While the song suggests that further oppression by the moneyed classes could lead to a form of revolution from the masses, it also preaches peace within the latter. The lyrics go on to encourage the masses to seek happiness amidst the suffering — through music, dance, religion, or any other solace to their pain.
With the ongoing conflicts between the authority and the masses across the world, this song rings true even today because, as Marley put it, the power is still in our hands. There can never be another Bob Marley, a man who viewed music as a gift to be shared and nurtured for a greater cause, a musician who fought for the people, through every song. Happy birthday to the Tuff Gong of the world! Stay Updated. Welcome Onboard! We tell your stories. After returning to his rural village from Kingston, Marley told people that his destiny was to be a singer, and refused to read palms again for the rest of his life.
What do you think of my poems? Keep doing what you do. A little-known, somewhat surprising fact about Marley is that he actually lived in the US for a short time in the mid s and then again, on and off, in the s. He had initially followed his mother, Cedella Booker, to Delaware after she remarried, living close to her in the town of Wilmington, where she ran a Jamaican music shop called Roots.
Amazingly, Marley worked as a lab assistant at Du Pont. Accounts of precisely how long he stayed in Delaware vary, but by he had moved back to Jamaica and resumed recording with the Wailers. He later returned to the US his son Stephen Marley was born in Wilmington in , but the Marley family have avoided specifying precisely how long for.
Baugh, who taught at the now-closed Peckham Manor School in South London, suggested that playing for his pupils could be a good publicity stunt. Witnesses told the BBC how, at lunchtime, they played a minute set to nonplussed students with Marley on acoustic guitar, before taking questions from the children and impressing them with his balls skills during a kick-about.
Extra-marital affairs on both sides featured regularly, with Marley conducting a slew of relationships with high-profile figures, from Miss World Cindy Breakspeare, to Caribbean table-tennis champion Anita Belnavis. While they were married, Marley had eight other children with eight other women, many of whom, like Ziggy and Stephen, have also gone on to be musicians.
R for proof. Two days later, Marley was due to headline The Smile Jamaica concert, in an effort to promote national unity during a period of political violence in Jamaica. Although he initially moved into digs near Tottenham Court Road and then Bayswater, having come over from Jamaica, where the Wailers were already well established, on a mission to bring their music to a wider audience, his first proper base in the UK capital was in the northwest borough of Neasden, a small, semi-detached house that the band moved into in This further demonstrates how far and wide the phenomenon has spread globally.
There are currently an estimated one million followers around the world. 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:.
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