Ziggy Speaks Out About His Father Bob Marley
Bob Marley was a Jamaican musician, a singer and songwriter, a cultural icon, a spiritual leader, and a symbol of political and social change. He was the predominant force in bringing reggae music to the mainstream public around the world. Even those who don’t follow reggae music know his hit songs like “I Shot the Sheriff”, “No Woman, No Cry”, “Could You Be Loved”, “Jamming”, “One Love” and, so many more. Although he died over 30 years ago at the age of 36, people of all ages still know his music, and his legacy. This week, a new documentary film recounting his life, will be released. Although there have been many films and books about Marley’s life, this is the first biography that has been authorized by the late artist’s family. His son, Ziggy Marley, served as Executive Producer for the film, and he stopped by the SiriusXM studios recently to talk about “Marley”, the film, and Bob Marley, the man. Excerpts of the interview appear below.
Ron Bennington: Congratulations on this. I was stunned to see the amount of footage that I’d never seen before. So much stuff that I guess has been sitting in vaults for years.
Ziggy Marley: Yes. I mean it’s funny because during this process you find out everybody has something of Bob Marley’s out there. Some guy way over there is like “Hey. I’ve got a piece of footage” and you get so much people with snippets and pieces of Bob that you wonder how did this stuff got out and you wonder I didn’t think there was a camera there during that time. There’s so much things out there and it’s so accessible with internet now. We can find people and people find us.
Ron Bennington: We’ve known this music for so long and it’s such a part of the culture, now to go back and watch it being put together…to see it actually happening and to see like ‘Oh my God, that’s right, this all happened in a very short period of time’…
Ziggy Marley: That’s true. That’s true. Making this film and being a part of it, something that keeps coming back to my mind is how young my father was when he passed away. I kind of really realize that now. Like he was so young. But he went through so much from the beginning and up until the end. And the movie really, I think for me, it was an emotional thing to watch. The first cut was so emotional because some of the things I wasn’t aware of. Especially his time in Germany when he was sick. We weren’t aware of all this stuff that was happening there, so it was very emotional for us to watch that.
Ron Bennington: There was so much emotional stuff because there was so much chaos around him; political upheaval taking place, and he was becoming famous in a place that never really had people that were famous before coming out of it.
Ziggy Marley: You know his whole life and everything that he went through from the fact that he was of mixed race– white father, Black mother– and the fact that he got some negativity when he went to Kingston because of that fact; those are things I didn’t know either. And those are things that kind of works inside of a person and however he worked that out was a part of his creativity, was a part of why he became who he was, and why he was saying the things he was saying. And so I mean all the things that were happening around him was just a part of his inspiration. And you get to see, in the film you get to see why he sung about what he sung about and where it’s coming from and some of the meaning behind it.
Ron Bennington: The fact that he could be so all inclusive had a lot to do with the fact that he was excluded and that we never think of– we think of prejudice as White people’s sin, but here Black people were saying “No, what are you doing here?” And we’re not used to seeing that at all.
Ziggy Marley: Exactly. That was a surprise for me.
Ron Bennington: And then to see the way that he was welcomed in England where they had a love for him. At the same time he shows up in Africa and there’s a love for him. And it isn’t just music, even though the music is fantastic, but it’s also social. It’s political. And it’s spiritual.
Ziggy Marley: Yeah. True. I’m traveling the world. He’s an influence there. He’s the only artist I know that has that wide wide reach, no matter where you’re going. I don’t know any other artist in the world ever that has that reach.
Ron Bennington: And it’s one thing I guess for you to see him as this artist, but then to see him as your father and to know that this was a path that your father walked. Most of us have a strange relationship with our fathers as it is. But we never had to deal with Bob Marley’s shadow.
Ziggy Marley: Growing up with my father, it was never apparent to us that he was anything more than a musician, a social activist that saw what was happening around him. But he was never the icon he is now obviously. So it was much different. And in my early years, even after he passed away, I think we were isolated from this shadow. We were living in Jamaica and it’s a different world there then it is here. The idea of super stardom and the pop culture phenomenal is not as big there as it is here. So the shadow wasn’t as predominant, but after high school I started to realize this idea of this shadow and what it was. And then when I sort of became comfortable with it and with my father and my place in his world, I was happy. And part of doing this project and being a part of it as his eldest son was me kind of wanting to make sure that my vision or how I see my father, is represented. Not just how somebody who didn’t know him is writing a book or some friend of his, but from the blood. I mean I know my father from blood. You know what I’m saying? This documentary is an opportunity for me to instill that blood knowledge into the wider knowledge of how people see Bob.
Ron Bennington: Yeah because we can just put him on a pedestal and he’s a legend, but the really interesting thing is that he was a man. That he was a person. That he was an artist. And that this music flowed through him and it was being played, it looks like constantly throughout your childhood. It was just around the clock.
Ziggy Marley: Yeah, it was. When I was young, he was, as I say. I realize how young he was when he passed away, but when I was young he was like a big man. He was an old man, you know? But now that I’m older, I realize he was not old. But he kept, I don’t know what it was, but like you said the music never stopped. He was singing all the time, playing the guitar. I don’t know if people like this know they have a short time or what. But it was a continuous non-stop thing going on with him.
Ron Bennington: Yeah, it makes you wonder that if there was some fate to that. That whether there was some kind of ‘I’ve got to live more life than most people.’
Ziggy Marley: Right. Right. Yeah, in that short period. So it was very interesting to know that I can look back it at in that way. Because of the film, I can kind of look back and say why? Because we had to lend so much of what we own in terms of photographs and footage, my walls were pasted with my father’s footage. I was looking at the photos and I kind of looked at him different than I would normally do if I didn’t have this opportunity to be so surrounded by him. You know I feel sad, I feel sorry that he was so young. I feel kind of upset that, I wish I could have been a man at that point and been around. To kind of protect him or whatever. But yeah, you know that’s how it is.
Ron Bennington: I think also one of the reasons that this is a good age for you to put this documentary out is because you have your own achievements. You’ve had your own music. And you stand on your own. But to look at Bob Marley as a musician, at what point did you think it kicked in where he became something special? And can you look at that and say this is where it all started to happen?
Ziggy Marley: You know where I really think it started to happen is when he started to get into spirituality. Get into what is called Rastafari culture. Because that gave it a different purpose. That gave it a purpose beyond ‘I need to make a living.’ It gave him a mission. And in the film, it shows that he didn’t know his father. He didn’t have a father. In the Rasta culture, Haile Selassie is God, the King of Kings. And this person became his father. His God became his father. And once he realizes, he started working for God. He started working for his father. And that just gave him that drive. And that gave him inspiration to write all the songs and that gave him some sort of magnetism that kind of drew, we talked about him drawing people to him, the spiritual element was really the most important element in his music and what he believed in his faith.
Ron Bennington: And in his spirituality, creativity plays a big part of that. So writing is a way of honoring God. And playing music is honoring God. And bringing people is honoring God.
Ziggy Marley: This is true. Because he used to read the Bible a lot — he was an avid Bible reader– a lot of his songs have references that come from the Old Testament and things like that. And all of my family, they were church going people. Christian, even to this day, his mother’s sister, they have in Delaware, they have churches. My cousins are priests and pastors. And in Jamaica, in the country where he grew up, I think probably people call it superstitious or whatever, but there’s a magical element or that spiritual element that we in our culture feel is real. And some in other cultures, they’ll say “Oh it’s just superstition”, but that element, that magic, that spirit makes it special.
Ron Bennington: And he would take a piece from here and take a piece from there and bring it all together and it became something new.
Ziggy Marley: Open. He was open-minded. And I think that was one of the reasons why the group Wailers even got kind of broke up because Bob was much more like willing to go there into the world. He wasn’t a radical guy who wanted to be a fundamentalist in his belief that “We don’t do this. We don’t go there. We don’t play in the clubs that they serve pork”. This man is a man that wants to go there and spread the message to everyone. It doesn’t matter. And I think that caused…in the film you hear Bunny Wailer who was in the Wailers speak about that element. How when they sang to Island (Records) and Chris wanted them to play in a club, Bunny was like “Do you know who we are? We don’t play those type of places”. (laughs) But Bob wasn’t like that. Bob was opened to play for anybody.
Ron Bennington: You’re releasing this in theaters. You’re releasing it On Demand. And you’re releasing it on Facebook at the same time. So this is a chance for people all over the world to see this on April 20th.
Ziggy Marley: Yeah definitely. You know with the whole computer and internet age, especially for kids and there’s a lot of kids out there who idolize Bob who don’t really know Bob. This will give them an opportunity to have access to see this film in any format they want to, so that was very important.
Ron Bennington: Ziggy Marley, The Legends of Reggae will air the first Saturday each month. 12:00 Eastern time and rebroadcast the next day Sunday at 2PM on The Joint, SiriusXM channel 42. And again for Marley, this is a phenomenal documentary and you really get your money’s worth because it’s a nice long documentary from the beginning, from he’s a baby, from the cradle to the grave, the whole thing is there. “Marley”, it comes out in theaters and On Demand Friday April 20th. And Facebook, you can stream it there. Facebook.com/BobMarley. Ziggy, thanks so much for coming in.
Ziggy Marley: Thanks for having me man.
Ron Bennington: It was amazing to get to talk about this stuff. I’ll see you next time through.
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