Bob Marley

Bob Marley was born in 1945 in the tiny town of Nine Mile, located in St. Ann parish. At the age of 16, Marley released his first single, "Judge Not." In 1963, Bob Marley formed The Wailers with fellow Jamaicans Peter Tosh, and Bunny Livingstone. The Wailers were an instant success on the island but it was nearly a decade later, after signing with Chris Blackwell's Island Records, that they achieved international superstar status.

Marley’s reggae was well-known for its political overtones. Written during some of Jamaica’s most turbulent years, his music spoke of the endemic problems of the island: poverty, crime, and the racial inequalities and the tragic legacy of slavery. Reggae also was linked hand in hand with Jamaica’s minority religion, Rastafarianism., a religion centered around a belief in the divinity of the late Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia.