BOB MARLEY wasn’t your regular Jamaican-born, dread-locked, cannabis-smoking, reggae musician, guitarist and a Rastafarian, a way of life that most Jamacian youth were falling for in the 60s. In his short span of life (36 years) he rose above all precedents one would associate with a free soul musician like him. Despite nurturing 11 children from nine different women, he is idolised, followed, adored and worshiped not just by Jamaicans, blacks but by anyone who has heard his soulful music. Chris Salewicz is the man who had the opportunity to observe the man in great detail during his highs (late 60s) and his lows (late 70s). Probably, that’s why his biography on the man is the most evocative of all the books written on the legend. After all it’s not easy to intrude into the day-to-day life of an effervescent and convoluted personality like Marley’s – his relation with his mother, women in his life (not necessarily his wife), his struggle for racial identity (white father, black mother), his early days with ‘The Wailers’ and later years with ‘Bob Marley and the Wailers’, his transition to Rastafari style of living, his political bend, tryst with cancer and concluding rise to the immortality.

The author had a few interactions with Bob, backed up by the firsthand account of Marely’s relatives and friends resulting in insightful, intriguing memoirs on a man whom we could never fully understand.

For me the most refreshing part about the book is not merely the life story of Bob Marley but also how his life and music influenced Jamaican culture, the island’s politics, its youth, Rastafari moment, use of cannabis and of course, impact on the world music. It took the author over forty years of research to unravel the assorted complexities of the man.

Apart from music one of the major contributions, if one may say so, Marley had made was to unite the Jamaicans in particular and blacks in general through the way of life called Rastafarianism. The man, Bob Marley, personified the idea of Rastafari. There have been citations in the book claiming without Bob world would have never learnt of the culture known as Jah Rastafari.

Another picture that emerges out of the book portrays Marley as a peace-maker. Marley used his music and lyrics to bridge the gap between the two warring political groups in Jamaica only to get shot at prior to a peace-promotion event along with his wife, and manager Don Taylor at his house. Eventually, the concert proceeded, and an injured Marley performed as scheduled with a remark that tattooed on every Jamaicans heart forever, "The people who are trying to make this world worse aren’t taking a day off. How can I?"

Post the book, I know the man the way a Jamaican does.

—Anoop Chugh