Robert Nesta Marleywas a Jamaican singer-songwriter who became an international musical and cultural icon, blending mostly reggae, ska, and rocksteady in his compositions. He started in 1963 with the group the Wailers and forged a distinctive songwriting and vocal style that became popular with audiences worldwide. The Wailers released some of the earliest reggae records with producer Lee “Scratch” Perry.

Lifehood

Bob Marley was born 6 February 1945 on the farm of his maternal grandfather in Nine Mile, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, to Norval Sinclair Marley (1885–1955) and Cedella Booker (1926–2008). Norval Marley was a white Jamaican originally from Sussex, England, whose family claimed Syrian Jewish origins. Norval claimed to have been a captain in the Royal Marines; at the time of his marriage to Cedella Booker, an Afro-Jamaican then 18 years old, he was employed as a plantation overseer. Bob Marley’s full name is Robert Nesta Marley, though some sources give his birth name as Nesta Robert Marley, with a story that when Marley was still a boy a Jamaican passport official reversed his first and middle names because Nesta sounded like a girl’s name. Norval provided financial support for his wife and child but seldom saw them as he was often away. Bob Marley attended Stepney Primary and Junior High School which serves the catchment area of Saint Ann.In 1955, when Bob Marley was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at the age of 70.Marley’s mother went on to marry Edward Booker, a civil sevant from the United States, giving Marley two step-brothers.

The Bob Marley biography provides testament to the unparalleled influence of his artistry upon global culture. Since his passing on May 11, 1981, Bob Marley’s legend looms larger than ever, as evidenced by an ever-lengthening list of accomplishments attributable to his music, which identified oppressors and agitated for social change while simultaneously allowing listeners to forget their troubles and dance.

Bob Marley was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994; in December 1999, his 1977 album “Exodus” was named Album of the Century by Time Magazine and his song “One Love” was designated Song of the Millennium by the BBC. Since its release in 1984, Marley’s “Legend” compilation has annually sold over 250,000 copies according to Nielsen Sound Scan, and it is only the 17th album to exceed sales of 10 million copies since SoundScan began its tabulations in 1991.

Bob Marley’s music was never recognized with a Grammy nomination but in 2001 he was bestowed The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, an honor given by the Recording Academy to “performers who during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording.” That same year, a feature length documentary about Bob Marley’s life, Rebel Music, directed by Jeremy Marre, was nominated for a Grammy for Best Long Form Music Video documentary. In 2001 Bob Marley was accorded the 2171st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by the Hollywood Historic Trust and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, in Hollywood, California. As a recipient of this distinction, Bob Marley joined musical legends including Carlos Santana, Stevie Wonder and The Temptations.

In 2006 an eight block stretch of Brooklyn’s bustling Church Avenue, which runs through the heart of that city’s Caribbean community, was renamed Bob Marley Boulevard, the result of a campaign initiated by New York City councilwoman Yvette D. Clarke. This year the popular TV show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon commemorated the 30th anniversary of Bob Marley’s passing with an entire week (May 9-13) devoted to his music, as performed by Bob’s eldest son Ziggy, Jennifer Hudson, Lauryn Hill, Lenny Kravitz and the show’s house band The Roots. These triumphs are all the more remarkable considering Bob Marley’s humble beginnings and numerous challenges he overcame attempting to gain a foothold in Jamaica’s chaotic music industry while skillfully navigating the politically partisan violence that abounded in Kingston throughout the 1970s.

One of the 20th century’s most charismatic and challenging performers, Bob Marley’s renown now transcends the role of reggae luminary: he is regarded as a cultural icon who implored his people to know their history “coming from the root of King David, through the line of Solomon,” as he sang on “Blackman Redemption”; Bob urged his listeners to check out the “Real Situation” and to rebel against the vampiric “Babylon System”. “Bob had a rebel type of approach, but his rebelliousness had a clearly defined purpose to it,” acknowledges Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, who played a pivotal role in the Bob Marley biography by introducing Marley and the Wailers to an international audience. “It wasn’t just mindless rebelliousness, he was rebelling against the circumstances in which he and so many people found themselves.”

Awards

1. 1976 Rolling Stone Magazine’s Band of the Year.
2. June 1978: Awarded the Peace Medal of the Third World from the United Nations.^:
3. February 1981: Awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit, then the nation’s third highest honour, .
4. March 1994: Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
5. 1999: Album of the Century for Exodus by Time Magazine.
6. February 2001: A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
7. February 2001: Awarded Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
8. 2004: Rolling Stone ranked him No. 11 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
9. 2004: Among the first inductees into the UK Music Hall of Fame
10. “One Love” named song of the millennium by BBC.
11. Voted as one of the greatest lyricists of all time by a BBC poll.
12. 2006: A blue plaque was unveiled at his first UK residence in Ridgmount Gardens, London, dedicated to him by the Nubian Jak Community Trust and supported by Her Majesty’s Foreign Office.
13. 2010: Catch a Fire inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame (Reggae Album).

Smoking Herb

For better or worse, no individual in history is more closely associated with smoking marijuana – or “herb,” as it’s called in Rastafarian culture – than Bob Marley. Indeed, you would be hard-pressed to find a college dormitory anywhere in the United States without at least one poster of Bob “lighting up” proudly displayed on a dorm room wall. But, it’s important to note that Marley did not just enjoy weed as a recreational habit. He was instead a staunch supporter of the plant’s meditational, spiritual and healing abilities, and a fierce opponent to those (“political forces”) who tried using marijuana as a vehicle for oppression, and to keep certain groups of people out of the societal mainstream.

Bob once said in an interview, “Now, when you smoke, it make you cool, you know? It make you stimulate your mind, and make you sit down and meditate. Instead a get foolish, you sit down and you can meditate and be someone. Rum teach to you be a drunkard, and herb teach you to be someone.”