Boby Marley

An increasingly political figure, he survived a 1976 assassination attempt at his home in Jamaica. He subsequently went to Europe and experienced a new degree of popular success in England, Sweden, The Netherlands, and West Germany (now part of the united Federal Republic of Germany). Rastaman Vibration (1976) and a United States tour brought him unmatched success with American reggae fans, and his popularity was furthered with Exodus (1977), Babylon by Bus (1978), Kaya (1978), Uprising (1980), and reissues of earlier work.
             During his lifetime, Marley's music came to be closely associated with the movement toward black political independence, a movement prominent in several African and South American countries at the time. His music has remained highly popular, and for many it has continued to symbolize the hopes of the downtrodden for a better life outside urban slums. The clarity, conviction, and sincerity of Marley's performances, and his unique, melodic style of songwriting, have influenced many pop-music artists, including songwriter Stevie Wonder and rock guitarist Eric Clapton.
             A national hero in Jamaica, Robert Nesta Marley was a singer and guitarist who took reggae music to an international level. A Rastafarian, he wrote lyrics that touched on oppression, poverty, and violence and held out hope that these problems would be overcome. His music came to be associated with black independence. Marley's life was tied inextricably to the development of reggae music and the Rastafarian way of life. .
             Marley was born on February 6, 1945 in the small village of Nine Miles, Jamaica. His father was a captain in the British Army, and his mother was a Jamaican whose ancestors had been brought to the island as slaves. They split up when Marley was eight years old. Relocating with his mother to a slum on the outskirts of Kingston, he resisted Trench Town's hooligans and bullies without getting into trouble himself, despite the poverty and violence around him.