Born Robert Nesta Marley on February 6, 1945 in Nine Miles, (St. Ann) Jamaica from a middle age white father and a teenage Black mother, Robert Nesta Marley transcended the humility of his rural beginnings to become not only a million- selling artist and stadium- filling entertainer but a nearly religious figure whose pleas for brotherhood and justice achieved universal anthemia status.

When he was young about 16 years old, he started professionally, releasing his first single “Judge Not” on the Beverley’s Label, under the names Robert Marley & Bobby Martell. However “Judge Not” and its follow up “ One Cup Of Office” were not successful. Due to his musical hunger he asked Joe Higgs to tutor him, Joe was a recording artist who coached local youngsters like Marley, Bunny Livingstone, and Peter Tosh (who will become The Wailers) for free. They signet it in 1963 to Coxone Dodd’s Studio One Label; The Wailers saw their first release, “Simmer Down,” become an instant number 1. During the next two an half years, the group recorded over a hundred songs, and at one point in 1965 they held five of the top ten slots on the Jamaican charts.

The group didn’t make a lot of money from there record production, they formed their own label, Wail’n Sou’m, in 1966. The Wailers continued a series of local hits, with little financial remuneration. Following the album “ Best of the Wailers” with producer Leslie Kong (who may have lead to his death), they joined forces with the seminal oddball producer, Lee Perry, and produced an amazing series of singles that are collected under a variety of names an remain their finest hour.

In 1972, Island Records president Chris Blackwell signed The Wailers to a record contract, allowing them to release records under there new label, Tuff Gong, but after there first two albums with Island, the group broke up, leaving Marley at the head of the band (now named Bob Marley and the Wailers), to witch he added a female backing trio. The I- Threes (Rita Marley, Judy Mowatt, and Marcia Griffiths)

During his raise to fame Marley made his beliefs in Rastafarian, well known to the observation public. Most ignorant observers viewed Marley as a longhaired. Herbs smoking troublemaker, but the younger, more understanding youth say him as a leader. Almost assassinated in 1976 in his Kingston home in 1978 for his humanitarian achievements. He headlined a Peace Concert that same year in Jamaica, bringing together Prime Minister Michael Manley an Edward Seaga, the leader of the opposition. But his greatest honour came when he was invited to headline the Zimbabwe Independence Celebrations in 1980. He outdrew the pope in Milan, fathered eleven children by seven different women, sold tens of millions of records worldwide, left a $30 million estate, and died at the young age of 36 from melanoma.