Robert Nesta Marley, a global legend, known to us all simply as Bob Marley, was born on Feb. 6, 1945, in Nine Mile, Jamaica. He joined the ancestors on May 11, 1981. The music that he left us inspired other musicians worldwide and lives on, as do the messages he left behind—messages of love, spirituality, and resistance.
At a time in the world when the forces of hatred are rising, openly advocating in particular for the repression of Black life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we can both turn to the healing power of music and use it as a force to gird us for battle against injustice.
For today’s #BlackMusicSunday, we give Bob Marley and his extended family our love, blessings, and thanks.
I think there are very few people in the world who have not heard this refrain sung to a reggae beat:
Get up, stand up
Stand up for your right
Get up, stand up
Stand up for your right
Get up, stand up
Stand up for your right
Get up, stand up
Don't give up the fight
Written by Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, “Get Up, Stand Up” was originally released on The Wailers’ 1973 album, Burnin’. It has gone on to become a global anthem. Few people expected to hear Marley’s words echo from the United Nations thanks to Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados
addressing the General Assembly on Sept. 24.
An enterprising YouTuber named politicsrus remarked that Mottley’s speech resonated with reggae rhythms, and they made this video.
Writing for Paste Magazine in 2011, music journalist and historian Denise Sullivan explored the origins of the song.
“How long must I protest the same thing?” asked Bob Marley in 1978 about the song he and Peter Tosh made famous with the Wailers. “I sing ‘Get Up Stand Up’, and up till now, people don’t get up,” he said, according to Bob Marley…In His Own Words. “So must I still sing ‘Get Up Stand Up’?...I want people to live big and have enough.”
As the opening statement on the Wailers’ 1973 album Burnin’, “Get Up Stand Up” would become not only a signature song for its writers, it would go on to endure as an international human rights anthem. The song has survived versions as diverse as mellow jazz to ear-splitting metal; it’s a standard by any measure, though the fact that it still needs to be performed at all speaks to the persistence of oppression and human rights violations in all forms throughout the world.
Drawing from their troubled island’s political strife and its musical traditions, and combined with plain-spoken language that transcends time and space, Marley and Tosh built their track on a bedrock of groove and a strong lyrical statement of fact: Unalienable rights are not reserved for a special class or for those who wait patiently for greener pastures; rather, all human life under the sun is of equal value, right here and right now. At once a cry to rally and a call for prayer, “Get Up Stand Up” still remains an all-purpose change anthem, nearly 40 years after it was first sung.
Here’s the studio version.
As mentioned above, “Get Up, Stand Up” has since gone on to be recorded by multiple artists. It’s been performed at events like this one at River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the Amnesty International Human Rights Now! Tour in 1988, featuring Tracy Chapman, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, and Youssou N'Dour.
As a global icon, Marley came a long way from his roots in the Jamaican countryside. Mikal Gilmore explored his beginnings for Rolling Stone in 2005.
Robert Nesta Marley was born in a small rural Jamaican village called Nine Miles. His father was a white man, Capt. Norval Marley, a superintendent of lands for the British government, which had colonized Jamaica in the 1660s. Marley’s mother, Cedella, was a young black woman, descended from the Cromantee tribe, who as slaves had staged the bloodiest uprisings in the island’s plantation era. Capt. Marley seduced Cedella, age seventeen, promising her marriage, as he re-enacted an age-old scenario of white privilege over black service. When Cedella became pregnant, the captain kept his promise — but left her the next day rather than face disinheritance.
The couple’s only child arrived in the early part of 1945, as World War II neared its end. Nobody is certain of the exact date — it was listed on Bob’s passport as April 6th, but Cedella was sure it was two months earlier. It took her a long time to record the birth with the registrar; she was afraid, she later said, she’d get in trouble for having a child with a white man. While mixed-race couplings weren’t rare, they also weren’t welcome, and generally it was the child of these unions who bore the scorn. But Marley’s mixed inheritance gave him a valuable perspective. Though he became increasingly devoted in his life to the cause of speaking to the black diaspora — that population throughout the world that had been scattered or colonized as the result of the slave trade and imperialism — he never expressed hatred for white people but rather hatred for one people’s undeserved power to subjugate another people. Marley understood that the struggle for power might result in bloodshed, but he also maintained that if humankind failed to stand together, it would fail to stand at all.
In the 1950s, Cedella moved to Kingston — the only place in Jamaica where any future of consequence could be realized. She and her son made their home in a government tenant yard, a crowded area where poor people lived, virtually all of them black. The yard they settled in, Trench Town, was made up of row upon row of cheap corrugated metal and tar-paper one-room shacks, generally with no plumbing. It was a place where your dreams might raise you or kill you, but you would have to live and act hard in either case. To Cedella’s dismay, her son began to come into his own there — to find a sense of community and purpose amid rough conditions and rough company, including the local street gangs. These gangs evolved soon enough into a faction called Rude Boys — teenagers and young adults who dressed sharp, acted insolent and knew how to fight. Kingston hated the Rude Boys, and police and politicians had vowed to eradicate them.
The first major Black owned-recording studio in Jamaica, Studio One, was opened in 1963 by Clement Dodd.
Young Bob Marley was already starting to write tunes, and was singing in a group with his friends. This publicity photo reminds me so much of the images we saw of U.S. recording groups during that time period—groups who were very popular in Jamaica.
The Wailers would record “Simmer Down,” a tune Marley wrote with Studio One house band The Skatalites, in 1963.
"Simmer Down" was the first single released by The Wailers, accompanied by the ska supergroup, The Skatalites, and produced by Clement "Coxsone" Dodd in 1963. It was the number one hit in Jamaica in February, 1964.
There are several documentaries available online, chock full of music that tell Marley’s story, along with those of the original Wailers—Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer. They do a far better job than I could, so take some time out to watch today, or bookmark them for future viewing. I’m posting two here and will add a few more in the comments. The first, 1982’s Caribbean Nights: The Bob Marley Story, was directed by Charles Chabot and Jo Menell.
Marley, released in 2012, was directed by Kevin McDonald, and had the backing of several Marley family members.
Though Marley’s life ended all too soon, he almost died at a younger age: He was targeted for assassination when he was 31. That December 1976 attempt nearly took his life, as well as those of his wife Rita, his manager Don Taylor, and a band employee named Louis Griffiths.
The assassination attempt was thought to have been sparked by political rivalry and a free concert, called “Smile Jamaica.” Roger Steffens, author of So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley, dove into that history in a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone.
Author Stephen Davis wrote one of the first, and best, biographies of Marley and studied the shooting extensively.
Stephen Davis: Stevie Wonder had done a concert the previous year in aid of blind children in Jamaica. Bob wanted to do something like that, a benefit concert. It was set up for the National Heroes Park. It had no political overtones, except, of course, the fact that there was a huge battle for the soul of the nation; it was an election year. And Bob had supported the [People’s National Party] in the past. Then [Jamaican Prime Minister Michael] Manley called for elections right after the concert was announced, so it would look like, at the height of the battle for Jamaica, that Bob Marley and the Wailers would appear to support the PNP. Now obviously, to do a concert like that, it might be a bit naive to say that there was no politics involved in this in the beginning. Because even to mount a small concert in Kingston, you had to have approval of the government. To do a large concert like Bob wanted to do, it all had to be done almost directly through the prime minister’s office. So there was politics involved from the beginning. So for all intents and purposes, and indeed appearances, it looked like this was a benefit for the People’s National Party, which was Michael Manley’s party.
Despite being wounded in the assassination attempt, Marley still showed up for the concert.
YouTuber Marvin Mulenga offers this with his upload of the concert:
The Smile Jamaica Concert was a concert held on December 5, 1976, at the National Heroes Park, Kingston, Jamaica, performed by Bob Marley & part of The Wailers. Only two days after Marley had almost been killed by gunmen in his house, but survived and was driven up in the Blue Mountains. Nevertheless Marley agreed to perform one song for the 80,000 people in attendance, but it turned into a whole 90-minute performance despite his injuries. After the concert, Marley left Jamaica for London where he stayed for 16 months until he returned in 1978 for the One Love Peace Concert.
Bob Marley and The Wailers would go on to thrill the world with filled stadium tours, including in Boston on July 21, 1979, headlining The AMANdla Festival of Unity.
Here’s the full performance:
In 1980, The Wailers were in Africa, for a momentous occasion: the birth of the nation of Zimbabwe. As Al Jazeera’s Farai Matiashe wrote in 2020:
Marley, one of the most politically and socially influential musicians of his time who also had a strong connection with Africa, was invited to perform during the ceremony celebrating majority rule and internationally-recognised independence for Zimbabwe.
The reggae superstar not only accepted the invitation but also spent tens of thousands of dollars to fly in his band and its equipment to take part in the festivities that started on the evening of April 17.
“That night, Marley and the Wailers expressed solidarity with Zimbabwe,” said Fred Zindi, 22 at the time and now a professor in the Education Department of the University of Zimbabwe. “It was almost inevitable that a man so identified with the struggles against class and racial oppression should be invited to perform at the celebrations of the birth of a new nation, Zimbabwe,” added Zindi, who had attended the show.
Here’s that full concert:
YouTuber Marvin Mulenga (again) offers these notes with his upload:
In April 1980, Bob Marley and the Wailers were afforded the highest honour of their musical careers. On April 18th, the country of Rhodesia was to celebrate its independence from England and Bob Marley and The Wailers were invited to perform at the ceremony. From that day forward the African nation was to be called Zimbabwe. Officials from Zimbabwe's government-elect invited Marley and the band to perform at the Independence ceremonies. Cost was to be no barrier: Marley, whose "Zimbabwe" tune had proved inspirational to the ZANLA (Zimbabwe National Liberation Army) freedom fighters, was paying for it all out of his own pocket.
Before I close, I also want to pay tribute to the memories of Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer.
One final reminder: #ReggaeMonth is celebrated in February alongside #BlackHistoryMonth.
The Jamaican government officially declared February as reggae month in 2008. February is also Black History Month and both Bob Marley and Dennis Brown are born in February. Reggae Month itself is organised by JaRIA, the Jamaican Recording Industry Organisation, the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport.
Lots of history and music from a host of artists are being posted on social media, so check it out.
You have probably noticed by now that I have not posted any singles from Bob Marley and the Wailers’ most well-known albums. I’m leaving it up to you to post your favorites in the comments below.