Bob Marley Research Paper

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Jamaican Reggae Superstar Bob Marley, born Robert Nesta Marley, can be regarded as one of reggae music’s staunchest advocate of equal rights and an end to black oppression. Marley’s biology made it paramount that he found a balance between his black and white heritages. Marley was born during a period of very high tension between blacks and whites, which prohibited him socially from being recognized as a part of either group. The fact that his white father did not care much for him did not help the already situation either. The psychological aftermath of being an abandoned child of a biracial marriage heavily influenced Bob Marley’s music career through his dependence on the ideals of Rastafarianism and his unwavering sense of Pan-Africanism.…show more content…
The senior Marley was a British colonial supervisor and began his romance with the sixteen year old, Booker, when he was relocated for work purposes to St. Ann where Cedella had grown up and resided. Their affair and eventual marriage ended shortly after Marley’s birth when his father left the young family and moved back to Kingston. Marley saw him only a few times after that. During his brief life, Bob Marley did no speak very often of his white father, but when he did, it was usually just a statement of the facts about him: “My fadda was a guy yunno, from England here, yunno? Him was like…like you can read it yunno, it’s one o’dem slave stories: white guy get the black woman and breed her. He’s a English guy…I t’ink. Cos me see him one time yunno. My mother? My Mother African.” (Bob Marley, 1978) According to his wife, Rita Marley, Bob did not like to talk about his white…show more content…
He was also sometimes ashamed of his white heritage; he was neither white nor black and even though he could relate to most of the struggles of the black race, he was never fully accepted as a black man. The documentary, Marley, showed that growing up, Bob was often mistreated because of his light skin colour. Rita Marley recalls that he was often taunted by the “gangsters” in Kimgston which forced him to put on tough persona. Many researchers have revealed that Bob, throughout his life, was friends with many “Rude Boy” personas and could even be called a rude boy himself. The childhood mentality of resentment and embarrassment sculpted Marley’s youth and eventually influenced the ideals and work of his musical genius for his entire

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