![]() “I am doing something,” he said, “because I see the exploitation.” The song’s direct, chant-style chorus was further enhanced by the Wailers themselves unlike its predecessor, Catch a Fire, which used overdubs by U.S. Marley had taken a trip to Haiti and witnessed its poverty firsthand, and Tosh was similarly attuned to oppression, particularly in the music business. Marley and Peter Tosh were often at odds about the Wailers’ music (for instance, how many Tosh songs should be featured on their albums), but the co-written “Get Up, Stand Up” was a case of two minds thinking as one. “Get Up, Stand Up” may be the most potent song ever about human rights and the fight to secure them. Hear most of Bob Marley’s 50 Greatest Songs on Spotify. “His melodies take up a resonance in our minds, in our lives, and that can provide admission to the songs’ meanings… He was the master of mellifluent insurgency.” “Marley sang about tyranny and anger, about brutality and apocalypse, in enticing tones, not dissonant ones,” Mikal Gilmore wrote in 2005. His songs of freedom have become universal hymns. His artistic fearlessness and social commitment remain an inspiration to activists, musical and otherwise. He is a cornerstone of 21st-century music, covered by countless singers, sampled and quoted by just as many hip-hop acts whose artistic DNA is shaped profoundly by the Jamaican music Marley defined. Marley’s stature and influence as a singer, songwriter, and international pop-culture prophet have only grown since those words were written. ![]() But, in fact, he was a man with deep religious and political sentiments who rose from destitution to become one of the most influential music figures in the last 20 years.” In the 1981 Rolling Stone obituary, Bob Marley biographer Timothy White wrote, “The pervasive image of Bob Marley is that of a gleeful Rasta with a croissant-sized spliff clenched in his teeth, stoned silly and without a care in the world. It’s being republished in honor of what would have been Bob Marley’s 75th birthday, February 6th, 2020. ![]() All those who have ears, let them hear.This list was originally published March 28th, 2014. In just 36 short years on planet earth, this poor country boy who was born in the rural Jamaican village of Nine Mile and raised on the mean streets of Trenchtown took his music and and his message to the four corners of the earth. So we selected these 100 songs that bear witness to the genius of Bob Marley. But somewhere along the way all those T-shirts and black-light posters may have obscured the fact that Marley was also one of the greatest songwriters and artists who ever lived.Īs Complex celebrates the 40th anniversary of the King of Reggae's iconic album Exodus, we decided it was full time to get back to the music. No wonder the man became a legend, a nearly mythical figure, a loved, modern-day icon of liberation and freedom. ![]() He did all this while championing a genre of music that was new to most international ears, while espousing beliefs that seemed far-out to say the least, and while rocking a funny-looking hairstyle and smoking some very funny-looking cigarettes. No matter now many times his smiling face has been appropriated as the image of ganja-fueled frat-party hedonism, the real Bob Marley was determined to risk everything so that he might use his God-given gifts to be a "wailer"-literally crying out from his soul on behalf of downtrodden people all around the world. When asked about the beginnings of his music career, Robert Nesta Marley a.k.a. Bob Marley told Jamaican radio personality Neville Willoughby that he "started out crying." Though Bob never tired of playing games with interviewers' heads, his answer had at least a grain of truth to it.
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