Bob Marley Research Paper

The early 1970’s saw soaring unemployment, rationed food supplies, and pervasive political violence to Jamaica. These realities heavily influenced the keen social consciousness that came to define Bob’s lyrics. The Wailers next move was forming an essential relationship with Lee Perry, a Jamaican music producer who was famous for his innovative studio techniques and production styles. Perry connected the Wailers and the Upsetters,. These two famous groups banded together to “forge a revolutionary sonic identity, as heard on tracks like “Duppy Conqueror”, “400 Years” and “Soul Rebel”, which established an enduring paradigm for roots reggae.” However, when the Wailers discovered, that Perry was the sole recipient of royalties from the sales

Later that year, Marley secured a contract with Johnny Nash’s label, CBS Records, and by early 1972, they were promoting their new album, “Reggae On Broadway,” in London. Unfortunately, CBS Records had little faith in the group and did not believe that Marley’s music would appeal to the general audience, and as a result, they abandoned them.

Marley attempted to rebound from this misfortune by visiting the London office of Island Records, which provided him with the opportunity to meet with Chris Blackwell, Island Records founder. Although Marley sought finances to record a single, Blackwell offered the Wailers £4,000 in advance, in exchange for the group to record an album. This amount of money was by far the most that any Jamaican group had ever received. Jimmy Cliff, the labels top reggae star, had recently left Island Records, and Blackwell saw this is as the perfect opportunity to have Bob Marley take his place. “I was dealing with rock music, which was really rebel music and I felt that would really be the way to break

That year he released his album “Rastaman Vibration,” which included the single “War”. The lyrics of the song were adapted from a speech that the Ethiopian Emperor had delivered at the United Nations General Assembly in 1963. “War” remains an “unassailable anthem of equality, its empowering spirit embraced by disposed people everywhere.” Bob Marley’s expanding influence was very much a point of contention for some Jamaicans who did not agree with the messages he conveyed through his music. In order to suppress tensions between Jamaica’s rival People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP), Marley agreed to hold a free concert on December 5th, 1976 in Kingston, called Smile Jamaica. Unexpectedly, two days prior to the event, there was an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Bob, leaving Rita and Bob with minor gunshot wounds, and Bob’s manager, Don Taylor, in critical condition. Despite this attempt to prevent Bob from performing at the Smile Jamaica concert, as a warning to “silence the revolutionary spirit within his music,” he performed for an audience of over 80,000 people. For the next year and a half Bob Marley lived in London where he recorded the albums “Exodus”(1977) and “Kaya”(1978). The “Exodus” album brought unparalleled popularity and financial success for The Wailers. In