Bob Marley | Jamaican, British

Bob Marley, a Jamaican singer, musician, and composer, was a global ambassador for reggae music. Marley became the first international superstar to emerge from the so-called Third World after selling more than 20 million records throughout his career.Marley grew up in the rural community of Nine Miles as the son of a Black adolescent mother and a much older, later missing English father.

Marley resided in Trench Town, one of Kingston’s poorest slums. He was poor, yet he found inspiration in the music that surrounded him. Marley was already a well-liked celebrity in his native Jamaica, and he was on his way to becoming popular to a significant degree. In 1976, his album Rastaman Vibration succeeded in the United States. In the album, War stands out as a track that expresses both his faith and his interest in political reform. The song, which is a battle cry for independence from oppression, envisions a new Africa free of the racial hierarchy imposed by colonial control.