Bob Marley by Mathilde Amory

My name is Robert Nesta Marley and I will tell you the story of my life. I was born on the 6^th of February 1945, in the little town of Nine Miles in Jamaica. My mother was Cedella Booker, a Jamaican woman who was a teenager when she got pregnant, and my father was Norval Marley, a fifty-years-old Jamaican of English descent and a Petty Officer. They planned to get married but my father left Kingston, Jamaica’s capital, before it could happen. He died in 1955, seeing me only once.

I grew up there and in my early life I worked in the fields because I have four half-brothers and sisters and my family was very poor. I couldn’t stand my way of life because I have always loved music (I could sing and play the guitar) and I dreamt it could become my livelihood. Therefore, even though I loved my mum, I decided, at sixteen, to leave home and all the misery I had known, to go to the ghetto of Trenchtown. And my daring was rewarded! I met the singer Neville Livingstone and I recorded my first single of Ska music: "Judge not".

In 1963, with Peter Tosh, I created the famous Reggae band called “The Wailers”. I became the leader and famous as Bob Marley.

We emigrated to the United States and there found fame with our album “Rastaman Vibration” in 1973. I later went back to Jamaica. I won’t detail all my long career because I’m already famous as a singer (I seem to be quite conceited with this sentence, but actually I swear I’m not). In fact, I would like to tell you all the little things which made me the man that I am now.

My music helped me to do a lot. For example, the world really discovered Reggae thanks to my band. This kind of music descends from Ska and the Blues, and it’s the ancestor of Dub and Rap.

And with Reggae, also called Rasta music, we were the spokesperson of our religion : Rastafarism. We consider the Emperor of Ethiopia, Hailé Sélassié 1^st, as the Messiah or the reincarnation of God on Earth, called “Jah Rastafaraï”. My lyrics are often inspired by my religion. A myth arose from that. Some people thought (and some still think) that I am a prophet of Jah! Of course it’s not true, I am just a religious and loving man. My lyrics almost all talk about universal love, peace and unity. And if they don’t, they are engaged politically and talk about dignity, rebellion and freedom. I am proud of them, because Reggae is often thought of as disreputable, part of a marginal movement, but in fact if you pay attention to the lyrics, you’ll see that we are just kind and idealistic people!

I earned a lot of money thanks to my discs (more than 200,000 were sold in my lifetime!), but I never needed all this money, so I gave it to people around me. Moreover, I was being true to my songs by my acts, but this was not understood by everyone. In 1976, the political context in Kingston was very strained due to the upcoming elections, and I was shot in my own house, but did not die. I took seven bullets. Two days later, I gave my open-air concert “Smile Jamaica”. Nevertheless, I wasn’t safe, so I flew away to London. There, I signed a rebel pact with the Punk movement by recording the single “Punk Reggae Party” (more Reggae than Punk!). Two years later, I came back to Jamaica to give another concert, the “One Love Peace Concert” and succeeded in gathering together two political enemies on stage. What an event!

But my great career had to end some day... In 1976, I got a cancerous tumor on my big toe on an old football injury. I refused to amputate my toe because it was against my religion. The cancer spread to my stomach, lungs and brain. However I continued my world tour, I couldn’t give up my music, my reason for living. Ironically, I had to stop the world tour for my album “Survival”, and I finally died in Miami on the 11^th of May 1981.

More than thirty years later, I can still tell you the story of my life, because as I inspired so many people around the world with my music and philosophy of life, they called me a legend. And a legend never dies!