Marley's Music example essay topic

Marley, Bob (1945-1981), Jamaican singer, guitarist, and songwriter, a pioneer of Jamaican reggae music. Considered one of the greatest artists of the genre, he was the first Jamaican reggae performer to achieve significant international stardom. Robert Nesta Marley was born on February, 6 1945 in Rhoden Hall, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, but soon after Marley was born the family moved to Kingston and settled in Trench Town (so named because it was built over a ditch that drained the sewage of old Kingston). Barley into his teens Bob and his Mother came to Trench Town. His friends were other street youths, also impatient with their place in Jamaican society. Soon after getting together with his street friends Neville O'Riley he began to take his first hesitant musical steps.

When he formed his first harmony group, the Rude boys, in 1961. The group later became known as the Wailers. The Wailers included vocalists Bunny Livingston and Peter Tosh, both of whom later embarked on successful solo careers. The group's early recordings were in a style called ska, a hybrid of New Orleans rhythm and blues and Jamaican mento...

Mento was the first of the reggae styles. (The term reggae is commonly used as a collective designation for a number of successive forms of Jamaican pop music ska, rock steady, poppa-top, and reggae.) By the late 1960's, influences from United States rhythm and blues, Jamaican folk rhythm. Bob Marley emerged as a rising talent in the Jamaican genre. In 1967 Bob Marley converted from Christianity to Rastafarianism, a religion that has had influence with reggae music.

The Rastafarian movement of this period believed Haile Selassie I king of Ethiopia as the living god, praised the spiritual effects of marijuana and endorsed black racial superiority Marley's music contains elements of spiritualism and mysticism. Some songs call for personal freedom through revolution, while others embrace carefree attitudes toward life or convey stories of love. Marley and the Wailers recorded Catch a Fire (1972), Burnin' (1973), Natty Dread (1975), and Live (1975), among other albums. During the 1970's, amid great political and economic turmoil in Jamaica, Marley cultivated a rebel image. He was increasingly becoming a political figure, he survived a 1976 assassination attempt at his home in Jamaica.

After that Bob Marley went to Europe and enjoyed a new degree of success in England, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany. Other albums that furthered his success were Rasta man Vibrations (1976), Exodus (1976), Babylon By Bus (1978), Kaya (1978), and Uprising (1980). Reissues of his earlier work were also very popular at the time. During his lifetime Marley's music influenced the movement towards black political independence.

A movement popular in African and South American nations. His music for many still symbolizes the hopes of the downtrodden for a better life outside urban slums. His style, the clarity, conviction and sincerity of Marley's performances, and his unique, melodic style of song writing, have influenced many. Marley will always be remembered and his sprit will never be forgotten.

Bob Marley died of cancer in 1981. The music world had lost one of its true and potent activists. A man who went from the ghettos of Trench Town to the top of the world to spread his message everywhere.