“The problem with Bob Marley in white America is one of perspective. Many of Marley’s songs are about resistance and violent revolution. The threat implicit in the lines ‘Them belly full but we hungry/ A hungry mob is an angry mob’ or the song ‘Burnin’ and Lootin’‘ isn’t too far from the surface. But lyrics about armed resistance make America’s secular-progressive middle classes — those most responsible for the cult of Marley as a cuddly ‘One Love‘ Rastafarian — uneasy.” Contending that “[l]istening to Legend to understand Marley is like reading Bridget Jones’s Diary to get Jane Austen.,” Slate‘s Field Mahoney argues the merits of Bob Marley’s back catalog, and suggests that US fans tend to overemphasize the stoner and underemphasize the revolutionary.
Tag: Bob Marley
One Love.
“Bob Marley, all of his songs are fire to Satan, the dragon quake. Bob Marley is still alive, vibrant style, Rastafari.” On what would have been his sixtieth birthday, Ethiopia (and Time Magazine) celebrate the music and legacy of Bob Marley.
Uprising.
“‘Cause we’re moving right out of Babylon, and we’re going to our father’s land.” On what would be his 60th birthday, the late, great Bob Marley will be exhumed and reburied in Ethiopia, his “forefather cornerstone” and spiritual home of the Rastafari. Said his widow, Rita Marley, of the move, “How can you give up a continent for an island? He has a right for his remains to be where he would love them to be. This was his mission. Ethiopia is his spiritual resting place.”