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Interesting to see his timeline

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Who was Bob Marley? Everything You Need to Know

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Bob Marley is a famous Jamaican reggae singer, known for his album 'Rastaman Vibration'. Read on for detailed information about his childhood, profile, career and timeline

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Music Video of Bob Marley singing Three Little Birds... great song for these times.

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Music Video of Bob Marley singing Three Little Birds... great song for these times.

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Bob Marley - Three Little Birds [Official Music Video]

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Bob Marley and The Wailers Performing in 1979

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Bob Marley and The Wailers Performing in 1979

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Bob Marley & the Wailers 7-21-1979 Live Full Show

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Wikipedia

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Bob Marley and the Wailers discography

Bob Marley in concert, 1980.

Studio albums

13

Live albums

6

Compilation albums

38

Singles

133

Soundtrack albums

1

Remix albums

10

Box sets

11

Most of Bob Marley's early music was recorded with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, who together with Marley were the most prominent members of the Wailers. In 1972, the Wailers had their first hit outside Jamaica when Johnny Nash covered their song " Stir It Up", which became a U.K. hit. The 1973 album Catch a Fire was released worldwide, and sold well. It was followed by , which included the song " I Shot the Sheriff", a cover version of which by Eric Clapton became a hit in 1974.

Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer left the Wailers in 1974. Bob Marley proceeded with Bob Marley and the Wailers, which included the Wailers Band and the I Threes. In 1975, he had his first own hit outside Jamaica with " No Woman, No Cry", from the album. His subsequent albums, including Rastaman Vibration, , , and the last album released during his lifetime, , were big international sellers. Between 1991 and 2007 Bob Marley and the Wailers sold in excess of 21 million records. These statistics did not begin to be collected until ten years after his death.

The Roots Reggae Library has created an overview of the music released by the Wailers prior to their contract with the Island Records label. This overview lists all the Wailers' songs known to have been released during that period, filled into six ska albums and 11 rocksteady albums.

Trojan releases

Live at The Rainbow (1978)

The Bob Marley Story: Caribbean Nights (1982)

"The Perfect Beat" is a song on the album Eardrum by Talib Kweli featuring KRS-One that samples the drum beat by Paul Douglas of a song by Bob Marley and the Wailers called "Do It Twice".

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Bob Marley and the Wailers discography Bob Marley in concert, 1980. Studio albums 13 Live albums 6 Compilation albums 38 Singles 133 Soundtrack albums 1 Remix albums 10 Box sets 11 Most of Bob Marley's early music was recorded with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, who together with Marley were the most prominent members of the Wailers.

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This article talks about how Bob's legacy goes beyond the music that he left behind.

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Bob Marley's album 'Legend' is still an international bestseller.

In our new weekly series, "Under the influence", we ask experts to share what they believe are the most influential works of art or artists in their field. Here, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University's Stewart Maganga explains why reggae megastar Bob Marley remains relevant, 35 years after his death in 1981.
It would be easy to dismiss Bob Marley (1945-1981) as someone who is and should remain a figure of the 20th century. However, this does not help to explain why even after his death from cancer three and a half decades ago, he continues to be revered by millions of people around the world. Marley's images can be found almost everywhere, ranging from T-shirts and hats, to bags and even coffee mugs. His greatest hits compilation, " Legend", has sold an estimated 27.9 million copies since it was released in 1984. It still sells 250,000 copies a year.

If there is anything that is to be associated with reggae music, the Afrocentric religion of Rastafari, or the Caribbean island of Jamaica, the first name that comes to mind is Bob Marley. Despite this, the reality that the world often tends to associate Marley with is far different from the one he grew up in more than 70 years ago.

Marley lived in a Jamaica that had experienced more than 200 years of slavery and colonialism. This would have a great impact on him, considering that he was born from a white father and a black mother. The key to understanding Marley was not merely the music but the life experiences that played a part in shaping the individual and, ultimately, the music that the world would come to know.

If there are three areas that played a part in shaping Marley the musician, it would have to be his experience of racism as a mixed-race person, his life in the slums of Kingston's Trenchtown and his Rastafari beliefs. All three factors have combined to make Marley the so-called superstar that he is still known as today.

Why Bob Marley remains an influential figure

Marley's influence was not limited to simply making music for the sake of entertainment. He was most noted for using his music to spread the message of Rastafari. Rastafari is a phenomenon that began in the 1930s in response to a message given by Jamaican nationalist Marcus Garvey, who proclaimed that African people in the diaspora should look to Africa, where a black king would be crowned. It was here that they would find their redemption.

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It so happened that on November 2 1930, Tafari Makonnen was crowned emperor of Ethiopia under his baptismal name, Haile Selassie. Rastafari was derived from Haile Selassie's name - it is a conflation of Ras, the title given to Amharic royalty in Ethiopia, and Tafari, his pre-coronation name.

What Marley brought to the world stage was something that was perhaps unique for its time. His tireless dedication and hard work to ensuring that the world came to learn and hear of Rastafari is in itself a major contributor to what made it into a global phenomenon.

Through Marley's music, people in all corners of the world came to embrace Rastafari. This has helped shape the Rasta philosophy to the extent that it can no longer be attuned solely to the needs of believers in Jamaica.

It is found that everywhere it has been adapted to suit the needs and concerns of the society in which it has been embraced. This has further led Rasta scholars such as Richard Salter to argue that there is no one thing as Rastafari but rather only "Rastafaris". What Salter means by this is that as a phenomenon Rastafari is understood in the societies where it is found. This further demonstrates how far and wide the phenomenon has spread globally. There are currently an estimated one million followers around the world.

Marley's message of Rastafari would further be extended to scholars who would play their part in educating the public about the nature of Rastafari. They would include, among others, George Eaton Simpson, Rex Nettleford, Leonard E Barrett, Barry Chevannes, Jahlani Niaah, Charles R Price, Michael Barnett and many others. Without Marley, scholarship on this phenomenon would not exist in such magnitude as is the case today.

Why Bob Marley's music is still relevant

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.

What is perhaps most significant about Marley's music is that his message has transcended both time and space. We now find ourselves living in a post-9/11 world where mistrust and intolerance continue to remain dominant, as much as they were back then. 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 1977 song . He also spoke about the sufferings of the world in his songs. These include So Much Trouble in the World, Burnin' and Lootin', and . This is what has made Marley not just relevant to his time but to ours as well.

My relationship with the music of Bob Marley

My relationship with Bob Marley's music began when I was living in England in the 1980s. There was a BBC television programme that my parents used to watch every Thursday night called " Top of the Pops". One of the songs that introduced me to Marley's music One Love. Little would I know that, over the years, I would become a fan of Bob Marley's music and eventually become a scholar of the Rastafari phenomenon.

Birds of a feather

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:

Biographies:

Documentaries:

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Under the influence of ... Bob Marley, the timeless music man

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In our new weekly series, "Under the influence", we ask experts to share what they believe are the most influential works of art or artists in their field. Here, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University's Stewart Maganga explains why reggae megastar Bob Marley remains relevant, 35 years after his death in 1981.

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This article goes through Bob Marley's long and widely successful career.

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In the 1970s Bob Marley went from being a pioneering but largely unknown reggae singer to an international superstar of an unprecedented popularity. In doing so he almost singlehandedly put Jamaican culture on the map. Over the course of the 1970s Marley produced a string of international hits including 'I Shot the Sheriff', 'No Woman, No Cry', 'Could You Be Loved' and 'Jamming' that propelled him to stardom on both sides of the Atlantic and saw him perform in front of massive crowds throughout the globe. The scale of Bob Marley's success in the 70s was unprecedented for a Jamaican artist and indeed, few artists who followed in his footsteps would reach Marley's level of popularity. The release of , Marley's posthumous best of collection, in 1984 solidified this popularity; the album would go on to sell 25 million copies globally. Even today Marley has an online presence comparable only to Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga; his Facebook page has in excess of 37 million likes, eclipsing the likes of The Beatles and Elvis.

Kevin MacDonald's documentary tracks the stratospheric trajectory of Bob Marley, and links it to the particular lifestyle and ideology which Marley came to represent, which was an embodiment of Jamaica's distinctive cultural heritage and spiritual traditions. Marley's Rastafarianism was central to his lifestyle and his music, which often sang the praises of Jah. Key to Rastafarianism is the conception of Africa as the motherland, and the idolatry of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie is matched by a political conception of pan-African solidarity. These political leanings are implicit in Marley's music, but are often not examined by listeners, to the extent that the postcolonial subtext of Marley's work is lost. As MacDonald's film suggests, Marley resisted any exact expression of political affiliation and kept his political message imprecise, and most importantly positive, making it palatable for all. He became an icon of a vague sense of rebellion against the status quo, which as MacDonald himself states, is the 'reason why he's on every student wall'.

Kevin MacDonald's documentary contextualises Marley's career and his politics within the political upheavals experienced by Jamaica in the years following independence. It also looks at the social issues which blighted the country, including the endemic poverty of the Kingston slums from which Marley himself originated. What emerges is a picture of a politically committed activist who was capable of incredible charisma, something which translated effortlessly into the music he produced. As some critics have pointed out the film declines to delve into the more controversial aspects of Marley's financial affairs and complex personal life, preferring instead to focus more on the public image, which would become so revered across the globe. For those within his own country of Jamaica, he occupied more of a defined position and was a cultural leader in every sense, one who exported Jamaican music to the world, and in doing so brought the world's attention to Jamaica.

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In the 1970s Bob Marley went from being a pioneering but largely unknown reggae singer to an international superstar of an unprecedented popularity. In doing so he almost singlehandedly put Jamaican culture on the map.