Thursday, July 31, 2008


One Love Peace Concert

The One Love Peace Concert was a large concert held on April 22, 1978 at The National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica.

This concert was held during a political civil war in Jamaica between opposing parties Jamaican Labour Party and the People's National Party. The concert came to its peak during Bob Marley & The Wailers' performance of "Jammin'", when Marley joined the hands of political rivals Michael Manley (PNP) and Edward Seaga (JLP).


Bob Marley said the following as he called the two politicians onstage, and while he held their hands above his head and said while improvising on "Jammin'":

Just let me tell you something (yeah), to make everything come true, we gotta be together. (Yeah, yeah, yeah) and through the spirit of the Most High, His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I, we're inviting a few leading people of the slaves to shake hands. . . To show the people that you love them right, to show the people that you gonna unite, show the people that you're over bright, show the people that everything is all right. Watch, watch, watch, what you're doing, because . . I mean, I'm not so good at talking but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. Well, I'm trying to say, could we have, could we have, up here onstage here the presence of Mr. Michael Manley and Mr. Edward Seaga. I just want to shake hands and show the people that we're gonna make it right, we're gonna unite, we're gonna make it right, we've got to unite . The moon is high over my head, and I give my love instead. The moon is high over my head, and I give my love instead.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Prayer for these Signs of the times

Oh Jah, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, "woe to those who call evil good" but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual eqilibrium and reversed our values. We confess that:

We have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it Pluralism;

We have endorsed perversion and called it alternative lifestyle;

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery'

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare;

We have killed our unborn and called it choice;

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable;

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem;

We have abused power and called it politics;

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition;

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression;

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh JAH, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless all men and women who have been sent to direct us to the center of Your will, to openly ask it in the name of the most High Jah!! Rastafari!!

Religion

Religion, Religion, Religion
Yes that's the means
The means by which we were sold into slavery
Whites came to our shores with religion
But in the end, they enslaved us
We were made to believe in a merciful God
But were thesr white merchants merciful themselves?
Not at all
They brought with then white idols
and they called these images of saints
They made us worship these images
But to them our cly images were evil
And according to them, the supreme God hates them
We were made to kill ourselves
All in the name of religion
Some of us fought in crusades and killed our brothers
we even killed our blood brothers
All in the name of religion
we were taught how to commercialise religion
What a wicked teaching this is?
Today,my black brothers exploiut others in the name of religion
The so called reverend ministers raped our sisters
And they even raped our wives and mothers
All in the name of religion
False religions now on the increase
Religion is making the poor poorer
And the rich are gettin richer
Pastors and Reverend Ministers now live in a clover
What has religion odne for us?
So many killings in the name of religion
So many violence in the name of religion
Exploitation of innocent blacks in the name of religion
Religion, the means by which we were sold into slavery
Yes, look out for false prophets and so called men of God
These men can kill you in the name of religion
Beware of them
Babylon the great has fallen and Jah's Kingdom rules.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Reggae Music And Rastafari

Reggae music is what took Rastafari to the world and Rastafari took Reggae music to the world. Bob Marley and the Wailers were the vehicle to take Reggae music and Rastafari to the world. Today Rastafarian's most popular symbol is Bob Marley, who died of cancer in 1981 at age 36. His influence on the music is still strong and many members of his family are now reggae artists themselves. He is known as the King of Reggae.

Formed in the late 1960's the group was known as the Wailing Rude Bwoys. The original members were Bob Marley, Junior Brathwaite, Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston. The band gained popularity in the early 1970's and then broke up. Bob Marley changed the name to Bob Marley and the Wailers. The Bob Marley "syndrome" caught afire in Jamaica. The popularity of Bob Marley brought many imitators and changed the face of music in Jamaica. Musicians looking for Bob Marley type popularity, grew dreadlocks and started professing Rastafari. The lyrics of many songs were changed and sprinkled with references to Rastafari . It was how Reggae was seen by the world and so the musicians obliged.

These musicans automatically grew dreadlocks, called on the name JAH Haile Selassie" and "Rasta". They professed Rastafari as a way to gain popularity and the perceived benefits. Many wanted to "piggyback" on the foundation laid by Bob Marley and use it as religious justification for smoking the ganja(marijuana)

Bob Marley and many that try to follow in his footsteps, are the voice of the poor and downtrodden. The lyrics of the music speaks to the masses. The message in the music in most case are about oppression, poverty, slavery, apartheid and human rights. The music identifies with the struggles of day to day life of poor people.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Bob Marley


Bob Marley was a hero figure, in the classic mythological sense. His departure from this planet came at a point when his vision of One World, One Love -- inspired by his belief in Rastafari -- was beginning to be heard and felt. The last Bob Marley and the Wailers tour in 1980 attracted the largest audiences at that time for any musical act in Europe.

Bob's story is that of an archetype, which is why it continues to have such a powerful and ever-growing resonance: it embodies political repression, metaphysical and artistic insights, gangland warfare and various periods of mystical wilderness. And his audience continues to widen: to westerners Bob's apocalyptic truths prove inspirational and life-changing; in the Third World his impact goes much further. Not just among Jamaicans, but also the Hopi Indians of New Mexico and the Maoris of New Zealand, in Indonesia and India, and especially in those parts of West Africa from wihch slaves were plucked and taken to the New World, Bob is seen as a redeemer figure returning to lead this.

In the clear Jamaican sunlight you can pick out the component parts of which the myth of Bob Marley is comprised: the sadness, the love, the understanding, the Godgiven talent. Those are facts. And although it is sometimes said that there are no facts in Jamaica, there is one more thing of which we can be certain: Bob Marley never wrote a bad song. He left behind the most remarkable body of recorded work. "The reservoir of music he has left behind is like an encyclopedia," says Judy Mowatt of the I-Threes. "When you need to refer to a certain situation or crisis, there will always be a Bob Marley song that will relate to it. Bob was a musical prophet."

The tiny Third World country of Jamaica has produced an artist who has transcended all categories, classes, and creeds through a combination of innate modesty and profound wisdom. Bob Marley, the Natural Mystic, may yet prove to be the most significant musical artist of the twentieth century.

Bob Marley gave the world brilliant and evocative music; his work stretched across nearly two decades and yet still remains timeless and universal. Bob Marley & the Wailers worked their way into the very fabric of our lives.

"He's taken his place alongside James Brown and Sly Stone as a pervasive influence on r&b", says the American critic Timothy White, author of the acclaimed Bob Marley biography CATCH A FIRE: THE LIFE OF BOB MARLEY. "His music was pure rock, in the sense that it was a public expression of a private truth."

It is important to consider the roots of this legend: the first superstar from the Third World, Bob Marley was one of the most charismatic and challenging performers of our time and his music could have been created from only one source: the street culture of Jamaica.

The days of slavery are a recent folk memory on the island. They have permeated the very essence of Jamaica's culture, from the plantation of the mid-nineteenth century to the popular music of our own times. Although slavery was abolished in 1834, the Africans and their descendants developed their own culture with half-remembered African traditions mingled with the customs of the British.

This hybrid culture, of course, had parallels with the emerging black society in America. Jamaica, however, remained a rural community which, without the industrialisation of its northern neighbour, was more closely rooted to its African legacy.

By the start of the twentieth century that African heritage was given political expression by Marcus Garvey, a shrewd Jamaican preacher and entrepreneur who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The organisation advocated the creation of a new black state in Africa, free from white domination. As the first step in this dream, Garvey founded the Black Star Line, a steamship company which, in popular imagination at least, was to take the black population from America and the Caribbean back to their homeland of Africa.

A few years later, in 1930, Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia and took a new name, Haile Selassie, The Emperor claimed to be the 225th ruler in a line that stretched back to Menelik, the son of Solomon and Sheba.

The Marcus Garvey followers in Jamaica, consulting their New Testaments for a sign, believed Haile Selassie was the black king whom Garvey had prophesied would deliver the Negro race. It was the start of a new religion called Rastafari.

Fifteen years later, in Rhoden Hall to the north of Jamaica, Bob Marley was born. His mother was an eighteen-year-old black girl called Cedella Booker while his father was Captain Norval Marley, a 50-year-old white quartermaster attached to the British West Indian Regiment.

The couple married in 1944 and Robert Nesta Marley was born on February 6, 1945. Norval Marley's family, however, applied constant pressure and, although he provided financial support, the Captain seldom saw his son who grew up in the rural surroundings of St. Ann to the north of the island.

For country people in Jamaica, the capital Kingston was the city of their dreams, the land of opportunity. The reality was that Kingston had little work to offer, yet through the Fifties and Sixties, people flooded to the city. The newcomers, despite their rapid disillusion with the capital, seldom returned to the rural parishes. Instead, they squatted in the shanty towns that grew up in western Kingston, the most notorious of which was Trench town (so named because it was built over a ditch that drained the sewage of old Kingston.)

Bob Marley, barely into his teens, moved to Kingston in the late Fifties. Like many before them, Marley and his mother eventually settled in Trenchtown. His friends were other street youths, also impatient with their place in Jamaican society. One friend in particular was Neville O'Riley Livingston, known as Bunny, with whom Bob took his first hesitant musical steps.

The two youths were fascinated by the extraordinary music they could pick up from American radio stations. In particular there was one New Orleans station broadcasting the latest tunes by such artists as Ray Charles, Fats Domino, Curtis Mayfield and Brook Benton. Bob and Bunny also paid close attention to the black vocal groups, such as the Drifters, who were extremely popular in Jamaica.

When Bob quit school he seemed to have but one ambition: music. Although he took a job in a welding shop, Bob spent all his free time with Bunny, perfecting their vocal abilities. They were helped by one of Trench Town's famous residents, the singer Joe Higgs who held informal lessons for aspiring vocalists in the tenement yards. It was at one of those sessions that Bob and Bunny met Peter McIntosh, another youth with big musical ambitions.

In 1962 Bob Marley auditioned for a local music entrepreneur called Leslie Kong. Impressed by the quality of Bob's vocals, Kong took the young singer into the studio to cut some tracks, the first of which, called "Judge Not", was released on Beverley's label. It was Marley's first record.

The other tunes -- including "Terror" and "One Cup of Coffee" -- received no airplay and attracted little attention. At the very least, however, they confirmed Marley's ambition to be a singer. By the following year Bob had decided the way forward was with a group. He linked up with Bunny and Peter to form The Wailing Wailers.

The new group had a mentor, a Rastafarian hand drummer called Alvin Patterson, who introduced the youths to Clement Dodd,, a record producer in Kingston. In the summer of 1963 Dodd auditioned The Wailing Wailers and, pleased with the results, agreed to record the group.

It was the time of ska music, the hot new dance floor music with a pronounced back-beat. Its origins incorporated influences from Jamaica's African traditions but, more immediately, from the heady beats of New Orleans' rhythm & blues disseminated from American radio stations and the burgeoning sound systems on the streets of Kingston. Clement - Sir Coxsone - Dodd was one of the city's finest sound system men.

The Wailing Wailers released their first single, "Simmer Down", on the Coxsone label during the last weeks of 1963. By the following January it was number one in the Jamaican charts, a position it held for the next two months. The group -- Bob, Bunny and Peter together with Junior Braithwaite and two back-up singers, Beverly Kelso and Cherry Smith -- were big news.

"Simmer Down" caused a sensation in Jamaica and The Wailing Wailers began recording regularly for Coxsone Dodd's Studio One Company. The groups' music also found new themes, identifying with the Rude Boy street rebels in the Kingston slums. Jamaican music had found a tough, urban stance.

Over the next few years The Wailing Wailers put out some thirty sides that properly established the group.

Despite their popularity, the economics of keeping the group together proved too much and the three other members -- Junior Braithwaite, Beverly Kelso and Cherry Smith -- quit. Bob's mother, Cedella, had remarried and moved to Delaware in the United States where she had saved sufficient money to send her son an air ticket. The intention was for Bob to start a new life. But before he moved to America, Bob met a young girl called Rita Anderson and, on February 10, 1966, they were married.

Marley's stay in America was short-lived. He worked just enough to finance his real ambition: music. In October 1966 Bob Marley, after eight months in America, returned to Jamaica. It was a formative period in his life. The Emperor Haile Selassie had made a state visit to Jamaica in April that year. By the time Bob re-settled in Kingston the Rastafarian movement had gained new credence.

Marley was increasingly drawn towards Rastafari. In 1967 Bob's music reflected his new beliefs. Gone were the Rude Boy anthems; in their place was a growing commitment to spiritual and social issues, the cornerstone of his real legacy.


Marley joined up with Bunny and Peter to re-form the group, now known as The Wailers. Rita, too, had started a singing career, having a big hit with "Pied Piper", a cover of an English pop song. Jamaican music, however, was changing. The bouncy ska beat had been replaced by a slower, more sensual rhythm called rock steady.

The Wailers new commitment to Rastafarianism brought them into conflict with Coxsone Dodd and, determined to control their own destiny, the group formed their own record label, Wail 'N' Soul. Despite a few early successes, however, the Wailers' business naivete proved too much and the label folded in late 1967.

The group survived, however, initially as songwriters for a company associated with the American singer Johnny Nash who, the following decade, was to have an international smash with Marley's "Stir It Up". The Wailers also met up with Lee Perry, whose production genius had transformed recording studio techniques into an art form.

The Perry/Wailers combination resulted in some of the finest music the band ever made. Such tracks as "Soul Rebel", "Duppy Conqueror", "400 Years" and "Small Axe" were not only classics, but they defined the future direction of reggae.

In 1970 Aston 'Family Man' Barrett and his brother Carlton (bass and drums respectively) joined the Wailers. They had been the rhythm nucleus of Perry's studio band, working with the Wailers on those ground-breaking sessions. They were also unchallenged as Jamaica's hardest rhythm section, a status that was to remain undiminished during the following decade. The band's reputation was, at the start of the Seventies, an extraordinary one throughout the Caribbean. But internationally the Wailers were still unknown.

In the summer of 1971 Bob accepted an invitation from Johnny Nash to accompany him to Sweden where the American singer had taken a filmscore commission. While in Europe Bob secured a recording contract with CBS which was also, of course, Nash's company. By the spring of 1972 the entire Wailers were in London, ostensibly promoting their CBS single "Reggae on Broadway". Instead they found themselves stranded in Britain.

As a last throw of the dice Bob Marley walked into the Basing Street Studios of Island Records and asked to see its founder Chris Blackwell. The company, of course, had been one of the prime movers behind the rise of Jamaican music in Britain; indeed Blackwell had launched Island in Jamaica during the late fifties.

By 1962, however, Blackwell had realised that, by re-locating Island to London, he could represent all his Jamaican rivals in Britain. The company was re-born in May, 1962, selling initially to Britain's Jamaican population centered mostly in London and Birmingham.

The hot ska rhythm, however, quickly became established as a burgeoning dance floor beat with the then growing Mod culture and, in 1964, Blackwell produced a worldwide smash with 'My Boy Lollipop', a pop/ska tune by the young Jamaican singer Millie.

Through the Sixties Island had grown to become a major source of Jamaican music, from ska and rock steady to reggae. The company had also embraced white rock music, with such bands and artists as Traffic, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Cat Stevens, Free and Fairport Convention so, when Bob Marley made his first moves with Island in 1971, he was connecting with the hottest independent in the world at that time.

Blackwell knew of Marley's Jamaican reputation. The group was offered a deal unique in Jamaican terms. The Wailers were advanced £4000 to make an album and, for the first time, a reggae band had access to the best recording facilities and were treated in much the same way as, say, their rock group contemporaries. Before this deal, it was considered that reggae sold only on singles and cheap compilation albums. The Wailers' first album Catch A Fire broke all the rules: it was beautifully packaged and heavily promoted. It was the start of a long climb to international fame and recognition.

Years later the acclaimed reggae dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, commenting on Catch A Fire, wrote: "A whole new style of Jamaican music has come into being. It has a different character, a different sound. . . what I can only describe as International Reggae. It incorporates elements from popular music internationally: rock and soul, blues and funk. These elements facilitated a breakthrough on the international market."

Although Catch A Fire was not an immediate hit, it made a considerable impact on the media. Marley's hard dance rhythms, allied to his militant lyrical stance, came in complete contrast to the excesses of mainstream rock. Island also decided The Wailers should tour both Britain and America; again a complete novelty for a reggae band.

Marley and the band came to London in April 1973, embarking on a club tour which hardened The Wailers as a live group. After three months, however, the band returned to Jamaica and Bunny, disenchanted by life on the road, refused to play the American tour. His place was taken by Joe Higgs, The Wailers' original singing teacher.

The American tour drew packed houses and even included a weekend engagement playing support to the young Bruce Springsteen. Such was the demand that an autumn tour was also arranged with seventeen dates as support to Sly & The Family Stone, then the number one band in black American music.

Four shows into the tour, however, The Wailers were taken off the bill. It seems they had been too good; support bands should not detract from the main attraction. The Wailers nevertheless made their way to San Francisco where they broadcast a live concert for the pioneering rock radio station, KSAN.

The bulk of that session was finally made available in February 1991, when Island released the commemorative album, Talkin' Blues.

In 1973 The Wailers also released their second Island album, Burnin, an LP that included new versions of some of the band's older songs: 'Duppy Conqueror', for instance, "Small Axe" and "Put It On" -- together with such tracks as 'Get Up Stand Up' and "I Shot The Sheriff". The latter, of course, was a massive worldwide hit for Eric Clapton the following year, even reaching number one in the U.S. singles' chart.

In 1974 Marley spent much time of his time in the studio working on the sessions that eventually provided Natty Dread, an album that included such fiercely committed songs as 'Talkin' Blues', "No Woman No Cry", "So Jah Seh," "Revolution", "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)" and "Rebel Music (3 o'clock Roadblock)". By the start of the next year, however, Bunny and Peter had quit the group; they were later to embark on solo careers (as Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh) while the band was re-named Bob Marley & The Wailers.

Natty Dread was released in February 1975 and, by the summer, the band was on the road again. Bunny and Peter's missing harmonies were replaced by the I-Threes, the female trio comprising Bob's wife Rita together with Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt. Among the concerts were two shows at the Lyceum Ballroom in London which, even now, are remembered as highlights of the decade.

The shows were recorded and the subsequent live album, together with the single"No Woman No Cry", both made the charts. Bob Marley & The Wailers were taking reggae into the mainstream. By November, when The Wailers returned to Jamaica to play a benefit concert with Stevie Wonder, they were obviously the country's greatest superstars.

Rastaman Vibration, the follow-up album in 1976, cracked the American charts. It was, for many, the clearest exposition yet of Marley's music and beliefs, including such tracks as "Crazy Baldhead", "Johnny Was", "Who the Cap Fit" and, perhaps most significantly of all, "War", the lyrics of which were taken from a speech by Emperor Haile Selassie.

Its international success cemented Marley's growing political importance in Jamaica, where his firm Rastafarian stance had found a strong resonance with the ghetto youth. By way of thanking the people of Jamaica, Marley decided on a free concert, to be held at Kingston's National Heroes Park on December 5, 1976. The idea was to emphasise the need for peace in the slums of the city, where warring factions had brought turmoil and murder.

Just after the concert was announced, the government called an election for December 20. The campaign was a signal for renewed ghetto war and, on the eve of the concert, gunmen broke into Marley's house and shot him.

In the confusion the would-be assassins only wounded Marley, who was hastily taken to a safe haven in the hills surrounding Kingston. For a day he deliberated playing the concert and then, on December 5, he came on stage and played a brief set in defiance of the gunmen.

It was to be Marley's last appearance in Jamaica for nearly eighteen months. Immediately after the show he left the country and, during early 1977, lived in London where he recorded his next album, Exodus.

Released in the summer of that year, Exodus properly established the band's international status. The album remained on the UK charts for 56 straight weeks, and its three singles - "Exodus", "Waiting in Vain" and "Jammin" - were all massive sellers. The band also played a week of concerts at London's Rainbow Theatre; their last dates in the city during the seventies.

In 1978 the band capitalised on their chart success with Kaya, an album which hit number four in the UK the week after release. That album saw Marley in a different mood; a collection of love songs and, of course, homages to the power of ganja. The album also provided two chart singles, "Satisfy My Soul" and the beautiful "Is This Love".

There were three more events in 1978, all of which were of extraordinary significance to Marley. In April he returned to Jamaica to play the One Love Peace Concert in front of the Prime Minister Michael Manley and the Leader of the Opposition Edward Seaga.

He was then invited to the United Nations in New York to receive the organisation's Medal of Peace. At the end of the year Bob also visited Africa for the first time, going initially to Kenya and then on to Ethiopia, spiritual home of Rastafari.

The band had earlier toured Europe and America, a series of shows that provided a second live album, Babylon By Bus. The Wailers also broke new ground by playing in Australia, Japan and New Zealand: truly international style reggae.

Survival, Bob Marley's ninth album for Island Records, was released in the summer of 1979. It included "Zimbabwe", a stirring anthem for the soon-to-be liberated Rhodesia, together with "So Much Trouble In The World", "Ambush In The Night" and "Africa Unite"; as the sleeve design, comprising the flags of the independent nations, indicated, Survival was an album of pan-African solidarity.

At the start of the following year -- a new decade -- Bob Marley & The Wailers flew to Gabon where they were to make their African debut. It was not an auspicious occasion, however, when the band discovered they were playing in front of the country's young elite. The group, nevertheless, was to make a quick return to Africa, this time at the official invitation to the government of liberated Zimbabwe to play at the country's Independence Ceremony in April, 1980. It was the greatest honour ever afforded the band, and one which underlined the Wailer's importance in the Third World.

The band's next album, Uprising, was released in May 1980. It was an instant hit, with the single, "Could You Be Loved" a massive worldwide seller. Uprising also featured "Coming In From the Cold", "Work" and the extraordinary closing track, "Redemption Song".

The Wailers embarked on a major European tour, breaking festival records throughout the continent. The schedule included a 100,000-capacity crowd in Milan, the biggest show in the band's history. Bob Marley & The Wailers, quite simply, were the most important band on the road that year and the new Uprising album hit every chart in Europe. It was a period of maximum optimism and plans were being made for an American tour, in company with Stevie Wonder, that winter.

At the end of the European tour Marley and the band went to America. Bob played two shows at Madison Square Garden but, immediately afterwards, was taken seriously ill.

Three years earlier, in London, Bob hurt a toe while playing football. The wound had become cancerous and was belatedly treated in Miami, yet it continued to fester. By 1980 the cancer, in its most virulent form, had begun to spread through Marley's body.

He fought the disease for eight months, taking treatment at the clinic of Dr. Joseph Issels in Bavaria. Issels' treatment was controversial and non-toxic and, for a time anyway, Bob's condition seemed to stabilise. Eventually, however, the battle proved too much. At the start of May Bob Marley left Germany for his Jamaican home, a journey he did not complete. He died in a Miami hospital on Monday May 11, 1981.

The previous month, Marley had been awarded Jamaica's Order Of Merit, the nation's third highest honour, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the country's culture.

On Thursday May 21, 1981, the Hon. Robert Nesta Marley O.M. was given an official funeral by the people of Jamaica. Following the service - attended by both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition - Marley's body was taken to his birthplace at Nine Mile, on the north of the island, where it now rests in a mausoleum. Bob Marley was 36-years-old. His legend, however, has conquered the years.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Damian Marley


When "Welcome To Jamrock" erupted onto airwaves and blew apart iPods halfway through 2005, it came as a shock to some--but not to Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley. The song is about the furthest thing from commercial music offerings today. It's an outraged and unapologetic description of the poverty and political violence ravaging his homeland of Jamaica. But "Welcome To Jamrock" hit hard because it's the sound of truth. Not to mention, the result of years of work to bring that truth to light. "I spent a lot of time thinking and this is the fruit of that labor," explains the youngest child of the musical Marley family."The song might be a 'success' so why be blind to that? But success can't surprise given the time put into it."

Jr. Gong has been honing his skills for some time. He made noise early on with the 1996 tune, "Mr. Marley," and his major label debut Halfway Tree, which showcased a unique gift for blending hard-hitting reality rhymes and an uncommonly eclectic musicality. With a classic reggae sensibility at its core and run through with streams of hip-hop, r&b and dancehall, the album resonated with urban tastemakers and won a Grammy for Best Reggae Album in 2001.

"A Grammy in reggae is good," he observes. "But it will be great to see reggae win Album Of The Year…it's not about one man shut off from the rest of the crabs in the barrel." So while slow-burners like "It was Written" and "Educated Fools" became club classics, Jr. Gong was laying the groundwork for the tracks that would become Welcome To Jamrock, an album that was ultimately several years in the making. Hear the album and you instantly understand it to be the work of a perfectionist. Jr. Gong is not focused on overnight success. "Some songs just come. 'Jamrock' was like that," he explains. "But other songs take a lot longer. This is street music, and the streets have to feel it."

He can be sure the streets will. Following the path blazed by its title track, Welcome To Jamrock opens with the devastating attack of "Confrontation." This is Jr Gong at his best, rhyming with the conviction of a street preacher and the intellect of a university economist. That essence is spread throughout the album, even when he switches pace and explores different riddims. "It's like going to war. Sometimes you have to wear camouflage to really get in there," says Jr. Gong of the diverse appeal of the album. "Dancehall, r&b, hip-hop…it's more about feelings. We're not just trying to do a segment of the mix. We're trying to do the whole mix."

This album is that mix. Never content to deliver a straightforward "reggae" album, Jr Gong touches on various sides or urban life as we live it today, from the smoky spiritual love ballad "There For You" to the nostalgic throwback jam "The Master Has Come Back." Hip-hop fans will bump to "Pimpa's Paradise," featuring Stephen Marley and Black Thought of the Roots as Nas rips his verse on "Road to Zion." Meanwhile, classic reggae heads will spark to the rugged sound of "Khaki Suit" which features the combo of Bounty Killer and Eek-A-Mouse. Together, the songs on Welcome To Jamrock convey a consciousness that's framed by the song "For The Babies," which Jr. Gong says was inspired by the idea that "we raise our children with the same lies we were told."

From the first listen it is undeniable that Jr. Gong detonates his lyrical gifts with force and precision, but it would be a mistake to think the man's abilities begin and end in the recording booth. Damian co-produced all but three of the tracks with his brother, Stephen, who co-Executive Produced the album with him. While the youngest Marley suggests his fiery vocal delivery is partly inspired by seeing fierce dancehall icons like Shabba Ranks, Ninjaman and Super Cat at Jamaica's Reggae Sunsplash festival as a youth, his work at the boards show him to be a knowing student of the early '80s digital roots sound of Sly and Robbie, a touch of Stephen's other productions and the magic in his own father's recordings.

These are elements that represent the science behind Welcome To Jamrock's instantly classic sound and an appropriate release on the family's Tuff Gong/Ghetto Youths International label. "It reflects us," Jr Gong says simply. "And I say us 'cause it's not just me that makes the album. We're taking the baton from the elders who made rebel music-we're new leaders of the old school."

The response to the "Welcome To Jamrock" single heightened expectations for the record, and its 14 songs--songs of both love and war--have a depth that surpasses what many might have expected, given the fear of creativity and strong beliefs that permeates the current pop climate and our daily lives in general. "These are difficult years…and this has been a year of signs and wonders and mystics. We're in a mind opening time now-a lot of people don't have material suffering, but spiritual suffering," he offers. "Welcome To Jamrock is about hope, and there's still more to share. I'm still very close to the beginning."

Karen Marley


Karen Marley, second daughter of Bob Marley, was born in England in 1973 but grew up in Jamaica. Karen has always had a passion for fashion and interior design influenced by her great grandmother, father and growing up in Jamaica. While growing up, Karen would always envision ways to design and decorate the house by moving the furniture around and bug her great grandparents to add on features to the house or redo the bathroom. She was only 6 at the time so she really wasn't taken seriously and instead, was sent outside to play.

After graduating high school in Jamaica, Karen went to Canada to study interior design. The birth of her son, Jody-Nesta, brought her back to Jamaica where she then opened up her own interior design business and store.

In 1996 Karen moved back to London and decided to make an addition to her career where she attended the Vidal Sassoon Academy and became a hair stylist. While in London, Karen bought her first investment property and soon got into the property development market.

The opportunity to express both her passions is what brought Karen to Los Angeles, where she now works as an assistant designer for Catch a Fire Clothing and Tuff Gong Clothing, as well as a property developer.