The Contradictions of Bob Marley

One of the drawbacks of Bob Marley’s level of fame is that his image has often been distorted or oversimplified by a popular culture which presents him as a peace loving, ganja smoking hippie. This portrayal ignores other aspects of Marley, such as the themes of anti-colonialism, Pan-Africanism, and revolution which are found in his music. These simplistic portrayals also tend to cover certain contradictions surrounding Bob Marley’s life and message.

Human beings are complex and at times even contradictory. This seems to be especially commonplace for musicians like Bob Marley who find themselves straddling the line between the message within their music and a music industry which is more concerned about commercialism than revolution. This is why I made the point in my book Malcolm X, Bob Marley, and Other Essays that Marley sang about revolutionary struggles, but he was not a revolutionary leader himself.

The contradictions within Marley’s life can be demonstrated by the fact that he was very popular among white audiences in America and Europe, but struggled to gain support among African Americans. As I pointed out in my book, part of the issue was that African Americans could not afford tickets for Marley’s concerts. There were other contradictions as well. As a Rasta, Marley believed that Haile Selassie was God. Selassie was himself a contradictory figure. He was a proponent of Pan-Africanism, yet Selassie’s repressive rule in Ethiopia left his own country divided. When Selassie died, Marley composed “Jah Live” as a reaction to Selassie’s death. Marley found himself trying to explain away the fact that the man whom he believed was God had died.

There were also contradictions in his personal life as well. Romantic love songs such as “Is This Love” were at odds with Marley’s own personal life in which he fathered several children outside of his marriage to Rita. It is difficult to reconcile the religious themes of Marley’s music with his womanizing. Not only did the womanizing reflect a compromise with Marley’s own professed religious faith, but it came to represent a compromise with his political ideology when Marley began an affair with Pascaline Bongo, the daughter of Omar Bongo. Omar Bongo was a dictator in Gabon. Marley himself seemed uninformed about the politics of Gabon when he was invited to perform there for Bongo’s birthday celebration. That Marley found himself having an affair with the daughter of an African dictator and celebrating her father’s birthday demonstrated the extent to which Marley’s revolutionary message of chanting down Babylon was disconnected from actual politics. Marley himself admitted that he did not understand politics.

This is not intended to diminish Marley’s impact as an important voice for the Pan-African movement. This is to demonstrate the contradictory aspects of Marley’s life. The ideals which he espoused in his music were not always reflected in his personal conduct.