Artist Name: Bob Marley
Genre: Reggae, Ska
Country: Jamaica
Artist Bio:
There's no denying that
Bob Marley remains the best-known name in reggae, even more than 20 years after his death. But think for a second about why he's known—the picture with the giant spliff and dreadlocks, and a few songs like "One Love," "Three Little Birds," "Jamming" and, of course, "I Shot The Sheriff". That's only one part of who Marley really was.
It ignores his real revolutionary stance and spirit, which is what helped make him such an icon to most of the non-Western world. . .
Even before most of the world had heard of them, they were already major stars who'd gone through some serious musical growth, from the lovely "Stir It Up" through the more politically aware "Simmer Down," a song aimed at curbing the riots of 1966, to the quantum leap of sound once they joined up with producer Lee Perry and his house band. . . 
. . .With "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)," "Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock)" and "Revolution" he laid down his manifesto—and it wasn't all peace and love, but social justice. . . If he was a hero to many, at home he attained almost godlike status. He was perhaps the only man in Jamaica who could bring peace in the December 1976 general election, and that was what he tried to do. The night before his peace concert, however, he was the victim of an assassination attempt. The next day, his arm in his sling, he still appeared onstage before leaving Jamaica for a year.
Although he released two lovely discs beforehand, it would be 1979 before Marley made his most explicit public statement with Survival. "Africa Unite" and "Zimbabwe" showed he was thinking internationally, something few artists did, and the album was, at heart, a call to arms for Africa. He followed it in 1980 with a tour of Africa that cemented his legendary status there, and with Uprising, whose closing "Redemption Song" is still about a wonderful an epitaph as a man can hope to have.
