Bob Marley's 80th Birthday

A short reflection.

I don’t think any musician had more impact on me growing up than Bob Marley. My mum swore that I knew the words to ‘Redemption Song’ as a toddler thanks to our next door neighbours on the White City estate, and his music would have been everywhere around me back then, even if I was too young to realise it.

Many years later when I started to develop an informed musical taste, my mum gave me a copy of Bob Marley’s ‘Legend’ - very much the beginners book of Bob but for good reason. It’s a solid collection of timeless songs that I could never tire of. Well, except for my first trip to Amsterdam maybe, when I heard it played in every single coffee shop, but still.

Over the years I made my way through mum’s Bob Marley collection. I discovered the ‘Kaya’ album just as I was learning exactly what a “spliff” was referring to in ‘Easy Skanking’. I found the ‘Burnin’’ album as my sense of injustice began to rage. My teenage years were all about Bob, like many others my age in the 90s, I even had his picture on my wall. The ‘One Love Peace Concert’ was my favourite video. I must have watched it nearly every day for months, and even though I never had a full understanding of the moment where he unites the hands of Michael Manley and Edward Seaga, I still felt some of the power which emanated from it.

My favourite book back then was Timothy White’s biography ‘Catch A Fire’. It gave me another side of Bob, the rudeboy Tuff Gong. It didn’t dampen the flame of his mythology, but it definitely showed him as more human. I think that’s the most important thing to remember about him. He was human, with flaws that I could never excuse, but a strength and focus that I could only ever dream of. He taught me so much, but he also led a path I wouldn’t want to follow. We have to be careful about putting anyone on a pedestal, but at the same time you can’t help but admire his courage in the face of violence and oppression, and most of all you can’t deny the power in his words and in his music. In fact I’d say they’re more powerful because of their raw humanity.

In a world where the name Bob Marley has become a brand to sell everything from socks to skin care products. Where his biopic only seeks to show his marketable side and purposefully ignores so much about his life. The one thing that can’t be denied is the music. For better and worse, his songs hit just as hard today as they ever did. On what would have been his 80th birthday today, I look forward to listening to Aleighcia Scott’s Bob Marley special ‘Power Hour’ this evening on BBC Radio Wales. I don’t envy her having to pick which songs to play though, there’s way too many to choose from! What are your favourites?