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HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB!!! (Born February 6, 1945)
This is a thread to honor one of the greatest people ever to hit the music scene, Robert Nesta Marley. Discuss the man, reggae, and anything else about Marley here:
Bob Marley (born Nesta Robert Marley) was born in the small village of Nine Miles in Saint Ann, Jamaica. His father, Norval Sinclair Marley, was a white Jamaican born in 1895 to British parents from Sussex. Norval was a Marine officer and captain. He was a plantation overseer when he married Cedella Booker, an eighteen-year-old black Jamaican Bob Marley's mother. Norval provided financial support for his wife and child, but seldom saw them, as he was often away on trips. Bob Marley was ten years old when Norval Marley died of a heart attack in 1955 at age 60.
Being of mixed race Bob Marley suffered from racial prejudice as a youth[3] and faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his life. Regarding his mixed race, Bob Marley once reflected: "I don't have prejudice against myself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white." Marley and his mother moved to Kingston's Trenchtown slum after Norval's death. He was forced to learn self-defense, as he became the target of bullying because of his racial makeup and small stature (he was 5'4" (163 cm) tall). He gained a reputation for his physical strength, which earned him the nickname "Tuff Gong".....
Bob Marley was a member of the Rastafari movement, whose culture was a key element in the development of reggae. Bob Marley became the leading proponent of the Rastafari, taking their music out of the socially deprived areas of Jamaica and onto the international music scene.
Now considered a "Rasta" legend, Marley's adoption of the characteristic Rastafari dreadlocks and famous use of cannabis as a sacred sacrament in the late sixties were an integral part of his persona. He is said to have entered every performance proclaiming the divinity of Jah Rastafari.
Many of Marley's songs contained Biblical references, sometimes using wordplay to fuse activism and religion, as in "Revolution" and "Revelation"
Revelation, reveals the truth...It takes a revolution to make a solution...
In July 1977, Marley was found to have malignant melanoma in a football wound on his right hallux (big toe). Marley refused amputation, citing worries that the operation would affect his dancing, as well as the Rastafari belief that the body must be "whole"
While flying home from Germany to Jamaica for his final days, Marley became ill, and landed in Miami for immediate medical attention. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami, Florida on the morning of May 11, 1981 at the age of 36. His final words to his son Ziggy were "Money can't buy life".[6] Marley received a state funeral in Jamaica, which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari. He was buried in a crypt near his birthplace with his Gibson Les Paul, a soccer ball, a marijuana bud, a ring that he wore everyday that was given to him by the Prince Asfa Wossen of Ethiopia (eldest son of H.I.M), and a Bible. A month before his death, he was awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit.
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