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Monday 28 March 2016

Bob Marley

Robert Nesta Marley was born on February 6, 1945. His birthplace was the farm of his maternal grandfather in Nine Mile, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica.

Bob Marley's father was a. English-born White Jamaican who was an officer in the British military. He was 60 years old when he impregnated the singer's black African mother. She was just 18 at the time.

His father provided financial support for the family, but rarely saw his son, and he passed away at the age of 70 when Bob was 10-years-old.

Bob Marley converted to Rastafarianism from Christianity in the mid-1960s. His conversion coincided with the conversions of thousands of his fellow Jamaicans of African descent, and as his fame grew, he began to stand as a symbol for both his culture and his religion.

Bob Marley viewed marijuana as a holy rite, much as some Native Americans view ceremonial usage of peyote. Viewing himself as a holy person (as do all Rastafarians), Marley believed that marijuana opened up a spiritual door which allowed him to become the artist and poet he was.

For a long time Marley drove a BMW Bavaria – not because he had a particular fondness for the model, but because for the reggae star, the letters stood for his band's name Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Bob Marley & The Wailers live at Crystal Palace Park in south-east London, during the Uprising Tour

James Bond author Ian Fleming’s house in Jamaica, which was called GoldenEye, was later bought by Bob Marley.

Bob Marley married Constantia "Rita" Anderson in Kingston on February 10, 1966. He had four children with Rita and another eight with other women.


Marley entered into a relationship with Miss World 1976, Cindy Breakspeare, who went on to mother Grammy-award winning musician Damian Marley. Bob Marley's tracks "Waiting In Vain," "Turn Your Lights Down Low", and "She Used To Call Me Dada" were inspired by Cindy.

The royalties from Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry" go to a soup kitchen in the ghetto he grew up in.

Bob Marley and the Wailers's album Legend, essentially a greatest hits release, is the best-selling reggae album of all-time with over 15 million copies sold in the United States and an estimated 25 million copies sold globally.


On December 3, 1976 an assassination attempt was made on Bob Marley. He was shot twice by unknown assailants, and played a concert two days later.

During the assassination attempt on Bob Marley, his wife, Rita, was shot in the headdoctors said that her thick dreadlocks saved her life.

In July 1977, Marley was found to have a type of malignant melanoma under the nail of a toe. Tragically the reggae star's Rastafarian beliefs prevented him from having the toe amputated and the cancer spread throughout his body.

There is an urban legend that Marley's cancer was the result of a neglected football injury (football being the reggae star's other major passion alongside music). The injury occurred in Paris when the Wailers took on a team of French journalists.

Marley performing in 1980. By Eddie Mallin - Wikipedia Commons

Bob Marley, suffering from cancer, played his last concert at a show in Pittsburgh's Stanley Theater on September 23, 1980. He played "Redemption Song" as the very last song before he collapsed on stage. Marley was rushed to New York's Sloan-Kettering Hospital for treatment, then flown to Ethiopia for rest.

Marley intended to end his days back in Jamaica but was so ill that he had to check into a hospital in Miami en route. Here Bob Marley died on May 11, 1981.

Bob Marley's final words were "Money can't buy life."

His body was returned to Jamaica where it was placed in a specially constructed mausoleum at his birthplace, Nine Miles.

Bob Marley was buried with his red Gibson guitar, a bible open to Psalm 23, and a bud of marijuana.

Source Daily Telegraph

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