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Bob Marley is perhaps the most well-known Jamaican that there is and people come from all around the globe to visit his homes and his burial site in Jamaica. His music is legendary. Had he been alive, this year he would have celebrated his 66th birthday. As it was we celebrated it for him in his absence.

February 6 saw us in Trench Town listening to his sons Damian and Stephen Marley and a whole slew of acts from and around the community. Trench Town has a character all its own which I am just now uncovering. It is certainly worth a visit even if it is just to see where Bob spent many of his formative years and to check out the source of the inspiration of many of his songs. Some of his lines are so poignant they evoke tears, others just so descriptive that you get the clearest picture. I remember reading somewhere (it may have been in Kwame Dawes' Bob Marley: Lyrical Genius) that no less a person than Derek Walcott was envious that he was not the one to write the line "my feet is my only carriage" in No Woman, Nuh Cry. I have several favourite Bob Marley songs. When I was a child, not quite ten, I would sit and play my father's records and I loved Redemption Song. The music was hypnotic and although I may not have understood the full import of the words I new without a doubt they were important and meaningful. Today, many years later, my favourite line may be the one to the right from Babylon System. For me personally as I close out my 3os, rebelling is an important concept as it becomes an even more fearful thing. Also the notion of Jamaica as a rebellious country that somehow in 2011 is not rebelling enough is frustrating and scary. It makes me wonder if we are all waiting to see what will be the spark that will set everything ablaze in this Babylon Sytem.

In addition to being able to write lyrics like those in Babylon System which give you pause, Marley is also perhaps the most famous Rastafarian there is, notwithstanding his conversion to the Ethiopian Orthodox faith before he died (http://www.jamaicans.com/culture/rasta/interview_AbundaYesehaq.shtml). A great deal of his music was about the teachings of Rasta. His music in fact that went a long way towards spreading the message of Rastafarianism and in the long run, giving it a sort of cool, maybe even some respectability, that it lacked when the movement first surfaced in the 1930s.

Rastafarianism began in Jamaican in a time of great economic difficulties for many of the country's people. The religion of Rasta, although it has many African and Christian features, is a genuinely Jamaican product. Like Mr. Marley himself. He was born of a white man and a black woman at once reflecting the tensions in Jamaican society between the ruling class and the masses. He represents rural Jamaica as well as urban Jamaica. In his lifetime he was depressingly poor and relatively rich. Bob Marley may have had dreams of Africa but he was definitely one of ours.

To Bob: a complicated, brilliant Jamaican. Happy birthday!

Jamaica Cultural Enterprises provides cultural tours which include stops relating to Bob Marley and his music. For more information email info@jaculture.com
 


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