55 Facts About Bob Marley

Bob Marley increased the visibility of Jamaican music worldwide and became a global figure in popular culture.

Bob Marley became known as a Rastafarian icon, and he infused his music with a sense of spirituality.

Bob Marley supported the legalisation of cannabis and advocated for Pan-Africanism.

Around this time, Bob Marley relocated to London, and the group embodied their musical shift with the release of the album The Best of The Wailers.

Bob Marley permanently relocated to London, where he recorded the album Exodus, which incorporated elements of blues, soul, and British rock and had commercial and critical success.

In 1977, Bob Marley was diagnosed with acral lentiginous melanoma; he died in May 1981, shortly after baptism into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Bob Marley was posthumously honoured by Jamaica soon after his death with a designated Order of Merit by his nation.

In 1994, Bob Marley was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Bob Marley was born on 6 February 1945 at the farm of his maternal grandfather in Nine Mile, Saint Ann Parish, Colony of Jamaica, to Norval Sinclair Bob Marley and Cedella Malcolm.

Norval was a white Jamaican born in Clarendon Parish, and whose cousins claimed that the Bob Marley surname had Syrian-Jewish origins.

Norval, who provided little financial support for his wife and child and rarely saw them, died when Bob Marley was 10 years old.

Bob Marley's maternal grandfather, Omariah, known as a Myal, was an early musical influence on Bob Marley.

Bob Marley began to play music with Neville Livingston, later known as Bunny Wailer, while at Stepney Primary and Junior High School in Nine Mile, where they were childhood friends.

At age 12, Bob Marley left Nine Mile with his mother and moved to the Trenchtown section of Kingston.

Bob Marley formed a vocal group with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh.

In 1966, Bob Marley married Rita Anderson, and moved near his mother's residence in Wilmington, Delaware, in the United States for a short time, during which he worked as a DuPont lab assistant, and on the assembly line and as a fork lift operator at a Chrysler plant in nearby Newark, under the alias Donald Bob Marley.

Bob Marley approached producer Leslie Kong, who was regarded as one of the major developers of the reggae sound.

In 1972, Bob Marley signed with CBS Records in London and embarked on a UK tour with soul singer Johnny Nash.

Bob Marley travelled to London to supervise Blackwell's overdubbing of the album at Island Studios, which included tempering the mix from the bass-heavy sound of Jamaican music and omitting two tracks.

Nonetheless, the concert proceeded, and an injured Bob Marley performed as scheduled, two days after the attempt.

Bob Marley left Jamaica at the end of 1976, and after a month-long "recovery and writing" sojourn at the site of Chris Blackwell's Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, arrived in England, where he spent two years in self-imposed exile.

In 1978, Bob Marley returned to Jamaica and performed at another political concert, the One Love Peace Concert, again in an effort to calm warring parties.

Bob Marley's songs were his memories; he had lived with the wretched, he had seen the downpressers and those whom they pressed down.

In early 1980, Bob Marley was invited to perform at a 17 April celebration of Zimbabwe's Independence Day.

Confrontation, released posthumously in 1983, contained unreleased material recorded during Bob Marley's lifetime, including the hit "Buffalo Soldier" and new mixes of singles previously only available in Jamaica.

Bob Marley was a longtime member of the Rastafari movement, whose culture was a key element in the development of reggae.

Bob Marley became an ardent proponent of Rastafari, taking its music out of the socially deprived areas of Jamaica and onto the international music scene.

Bob Marley began to use cannabis when he converted to the Rastafari faith from Catholicism in 1966.

Bob Marley was arrested in 1968 after being caught with cannabis but continued to use marijuana in accordance with his religious beliefs.

Bob Marley was a Pan-Africanist and believed in the unity of African people worldwide.

Bob Marley's beliefs were rooted in his Rastafari religious beliefs.

Bob Marley held that independence of African countries from European domination was a victory for all those in the African diaspora.

Bob Marley married Alfarita Constantia "Rita" Anderson in Kingston, Jamaica, on 10 February 1966.

Bob Marley had many children: three were born to his wife Rita, and two additional children were adopted from Rita's previous relationships as his own, and they have the Marley name.

Bob Marley surrounded himself with people from the sport, and in the 1970s, made the Jamaican international footballer Allan "Skill" Cole his tour manager.

Two of the cars that Bob Marley owned were BMWs, a 1602 and then an E3 2500.

In July 1977, Bob Marley was diagnosed with a type of malignant melanoma under the nail of his right big toe.

Bob Marley had to see two doctors before a biopsy was done, which confirmed acral lentiginous melanoma.

Bob Marley rejected his doctors' advice to have his toe amputated, which would have hindered Bob Marley's performing career, citing his religious beliefs.

On 21 September 1980, Bob Marley collapsed while jogging in Central Park and was taken to the hospital, where it was found that his cancer had spread to his brain, lungs, and liver.

Shortly after, Bob Marley's health deteriorated as his cancer had spread throughout his body.

The rest of the tour was cancelled, and Bob Marley sought treatment at the Josef Issels' clinic in Rottach-Egern, Bavaria, Germany, where he underwent an alternative cancer treatment called Issels treatment, partly based on avoidance of certain foods, fluids, and other substances.

On 21 May 1981, Bob Marley was given a state funeral in Jamaica that combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition.

Bob Marley was buried in a chapel near his birthplace in Nine Mile; Marley's casket contained his red Gibson Les Paul guitar, a Bible opened at Psalm 23, and a stalk of cannabis placed there by his widow Rita Marley.

Bob Marley's voice was an omnipresent cry in our electronic world.

Bob Marley was an experience which left an indelible imprint with each encounter.

Bob Marley is part of the collective consciousness of the nation.

Internationally, Bob Marley's message continues to reverberate among various indigenous communities.

Bob Marley evolved into a global symbol, which has been endlessly merchandised through a variety of media.

That the machine has utterly emasculated Bob Marley is beyond doubt.

Bob Marley is discussed in the 2007 action thriller I Am Legend, where the protagonist named his daughter after him.

Bob Marley was replaced by Jonathan Demme, who dropped out due to creative differences with producer Steve Bing during the beginning of editing.

Kevin Macdonald replaced Demme and the film, Bob Marley, was released on 20 April 2012.

In 2011, ex-girlfriend and filmmaker Esther Anderson, along with Gian Godoy, made the documentary Bob Marley: The Making of a Legend, which premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

In October 2015, Jamaican author Marlon James's novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, a fictional account of the attempted assassination of Bob Marley, won the 2015 Man Booker Prize at a ceremony in London.