He has since collaborated with Mick Jagger and Dave Stewart on the SuperHeavy project, and also worked with Skrillex, Cypress Hill and Sean Paul. In 2010, his acclaimed joint album with Nas, Distant Relatives, delivered the massive underground hit ‘As We Enter’: it was built on a sample of Ethiopian jazz, roots of which his father would have been proud. His powerfully contemporary Welcome To Jamrock album went Gold in the US in 2005 and the title track became a modern reggae anthem. His debut LP, Mr Marley, arrived in 1996 since then he has been the Marley clan’s most effective performer in the urban arena since his father.
He started releasing singles in the early 90s and remains an active, progressive singer, as his fine 2016 single ‘War Zone’ makes clear.ĭamian Marley (born 1978), the fruit of Bob’s relationship with the 1976 Miss World, Cindy Brakespeare, did not follow in the footsteps of his father in the way that many of his siblings have: Damian, known as Jr Gong (Bob was known as Tuff Gong), elected to talk rather than sing, being the family’s lone reggae DJ.
Julian (born 1975) is a multi-instrumentalist but is often seen playing a Gibson Les Paul Special, like his father. Julian Marley was Bob’s only British-born child, to one of his extra-curricular girlfriends, Lucy Pounder, who ensured their son was part of the wider Marley family and regularly took him to Jamaica to be with his half-siblings. Stephen Marley began recording solo in 2007, scoring a Top 40 US hit with his first album, Mind Control, in that same year, and cutting the excellent Revelation Part 1: The Root Of Life in 2011. In 1979, the four siblings started a group, The Melody Makers, later known as Ziggy Marley And The Melody Makers, and released their debut single, ‘Children Playing In The Streets’, that year. Bob also adopted Rita’s daughter from an earlier relationship, Sharon (born 1964). Bob became the first third-world “rock” superstar and, after he died, remained an icon: his cheerful 70s dreadlocked rebel visage, shrouded in ganja smoke, sold millions of posters.īob and Rita had three children: Cedella (born 1967), David “Ziggy” Marley (1968) and Stephen (1972). In 1974, the group split and Marley found global fame with a new Wailers, a band this time, and a supporting female group that included his wife Rita. The son of English sea captain Norval Marley and Jamaican beauty Cedella Marley, Bob made two solo singles in 1963 then formed The Wailers, a vocal group, principally with Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone, which enjoyed numerous Jamaican hits in the 60s and early 70s. And the Bob Marley family is once again ruling reggae music on a global basis.įirst some history, because “in this great future, you can’t forget your past”, as Bob sang on ‘No Woman, No Cry’. He has a big tree of his own: the Bob Marley family tree. Well, it took a while, but it has since become apparent: don’t worry about a thing, because Marley had it covered. When he died in 1981, at the horribly young age of 36, nobody knew who would emerge as reggae’s global representative in his wake. By the middle of the 70s he was the biggest third-world star in music, Jamaica’s global cultural representative, and the man who put reggae on the map. It was an attack on what he perceived to be the “big t’ree” (three) producers in Jamaican music, and Marley’s wordplay made it sound like a big tree that his small axe was going to cut down. In 1971, Bob Marley wrote and recorded a song called ‘Small Axe’.
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