The Immortals - The Greatest Artists of All Time: 11) Bob Marley

What separates Bob Marley from so many other great songwriters? They don't know what it's like for rain to seep into their house. They wouldn't know what to do without their microwaves and stoves -- to make a fire with wood and cook their fish next to the ocean. Marley came from the poverty and injustice in Jamaica, and that manifested itself in his rebel sound. The people were his inspiration. Straight up. Like John Lennon, he brought the idea that through music, empowerment and words, you can really come up with world peace. But it's hard to compare him to other musicians, because music was just one part of what he was. He was also a humanitarian and a revolutionary. His impact on Jamaican politics was so strong, there were assassination attempts on his life. Marley was like Moses. When Moses spoke, people moved. When Marley spoke, they moved as well.

Marley almost single-handedly brought reggae to the world. When I was growing up in Haiti -- where my father was a missionary and a church minister -- we could barely get away with listening to Christian rock and definitely couldn't get away with any rap. When I was fourteen, I slipped on "Exodus," and my dad, who didn't speak English very well, asked me, "What's this song about?" I told him it was biblical, and it was about movement. The minute it reached his ears -- the minute Marley's music reaches anybody's ears -- he was automatically grooving. The vibe goes straight to your brain.

"Redemption Song" transcends time. "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery/ None but ourselves can free our minds/Have no fear for atomic energy/'Cause none of them can stop the time." It will mean the same thing in the year 3014. Today, people struggle to find what's real. Everything has become so synthetic that a lot of people, all they want is to grasp onto hope. The reason people still throw on Bob Marley T-shirts is because his music is one of the few real things left to grasp onto.

[From Issue 946 — April 15, 2004]

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