Marley in Boston 7/75
"Bob Marley: Reggae Is Another Bag" - By Eric Benjamin, originally published on July 9, 1975

Reggae! "The word is the music," says Bob Marley, leader of Jamaica's premier band The Wailers. "Before the music there was no word "Reggae".
It is people's music, born out of the ghettoes of Old Kingston and Trenchtown.
Protesting, bitter, it bounces with the voice of the people who cry to Haile Selassie, Christ returned, to bring Righteousness to the Ethiopians living in Jamaica.

Reggae is the blues, American R&B, West Indian, and Calypso musics all grown in the Earth, mellowed, and then worked around three or four simple chords.
Like the blues, to which Bob Marley attributes some of his roots, Reggae is a music both for the liberation of the self -- and the people.
And while the blues rarely strays from discussing loves and disappointments, reggae is a tale of revolution, oppression, and violence.
It is music, politics, and culture which in one package tells of the black Jamaicans' opposition to their government.

The Rastafariah, the Brotherhood to which Marley belongs, looks to the East for Deliverance.
To the Lion of Judah, Haile Selassie, deposed Emperor of Ethiopia, who Rastas claim, will gather all the poor unto him for liberation.

And reggae, like the herb -- the giant spliffs of grass and tobacco the Brothers smoke, is an important part of this revolutionary Jamaican culture.

"How does my music relate to righteousness?" Marley says repeating my question, making it seem trite, "Music is righteousness. It is like a guide. Once you start to know anything about Reggae music, then you start to feel the roots of the Earth." Bob Marley speaks very fast; words, sentences, phrases all jumbled together....
One observer remarked that his language was about one-third English, one-third slang, and one-third swears. But even if he were just pronouncing his name, the Reggae within him would give it a rhythm. His writing is poetry. Not a high Romantic or Yeats trip for sure, but as much poetry as can be felt by any man who writes from the soul. His phrasing, his diction all are Reggae and are noticeably different from Americanese.
A song about a sad affair is "No Woman - No Cry." Four telling words that rhythmically bite, "Lively Up Yourself," again a simple thought, over simple music.
But to the oppressed it is a call for jubilation. "Singing guard me," says Marley. "When I sing I feel free. Sometime it should feel nice, feel good. Sometime your mood not steady, then is good to sing."
According to Marley, he and the band have been nearly continuously on tour for the last five years. He doesn't know anything more of Boston and won't than the Terrace Motel and Paul's Mall. Then, next week he'll be in San Francisco, then across the ocean to England and back to Jamaica to cut some new tunes.
When we arrived in Boston at the Terrace, Bob and Brother Mike, who travels with the band as Spiritual Advisor and cook, were playing soccer in the parking lot. And going at it quite whole-heartedly, Marley wearing spikes and clunking across the concrete lot, Brother Mike in sneakers.

Asked for the interview Marley says he'd be glad to talk right after he exercises - he tries to exercise every day.
After they work out we retire to Marley's room where Mike goes to work on the Waring Blender preparing carrot juice first, then a mixture of carrots, oranges, and tangerines.
"Hey, these plenty fertilized," says Marley while holding up a fairly crumpled carrot. (Rastas don't use fertilizer, preferring natural growth.)
We sit down in the kitchenette, roughly face to face, and Marley begins. "Some background about Jamaica" he offers -- "Governments beat other people too hard. But Jamaica is nice place, mun.

But people are fucked. The people should be free, and I mean free. I mean they can live "free" if they want to live like a middle class. But me personally can't accept that." "What is it in Jamaica that you can't do?" "Home there are people who can not even go out on the street without going to jail. Just for how he look he can go to jail.
They publicize that the Rasta bad, and all that shit. All the Rastafariah wants is to live with love.
If you live with love, you live forever, as His Imperial Majesty Almighty God.
" "It's a religion?" "It's a reality."
We pause and look at each other. Marley is an outlaw in his country.
His dreadlocks, his speech, his manners, all speak for him, and against Babylon, the Jamaican government.
Psalm 87, Brother Mike later showed me, alludes to the coming of the new Christ from Ethiopia and tells how he will topple Babylon, Selassie will gather all the poor, and then the last shall be firstS.This is the revolution Marley and his Brothers are waiting for.
Marley is not thinking in terms of politics or music, his "reality" conflicts with Babylon at a much deeper level.
"The government's the Devil," says Marley and the quiet is broken.
"The government compete against God -- the politics," he spits out, gesturing towards the ceiling, and then he speaks very quickly.
"I'm involved with every corner of the Earth, mun. So we talk about any leader anywhere, I shoot him cause he's wrong.
We want people to be Righteous, and we want that Righteousness rule the Earth.
And I mean all this politics and the Devil -- they have us fooled.
There's nothing (in their scheme) to work towards. We live now, and when we die we have eternal life. This is what they tell us. This is what the church says.
(In "Talkin' Blues" Marley sings "I feel like bombing a church, now that I know the preacher is lying.")
"But there is no leader on Earth who leads a good life. There is no one who rules with acts of love. Y'know what I mean, mun? None of them know what's it's about -
"We're gonna make a new law,' they say, 'and build two more prisons.' This is the future, they say. They say they know the future. This is the way of the west," says Marley, "But the West don't have no future.
" Well, then, isn't there a certain futility in doing your music?" "I play it for the youth, who can live in Righteousness but the big people cut you too much already. Them I feel fed up about. They learn too much about robbing things already. But the youth must know." "All the church teaches is that you die and go to Heaven," he repeats, "but the Bible says the gift of God is ever living life. Well, I cannot understand why they carry on saying a person dead. Everything that (the Bible) says is bad they go out and do it. And them eat crab, them eat pork, them eat shrimps, they eat everything the Bible say they mustn't eat. You can not be really free in the mind if you eat all the things that are badS."
"What do you eat, fruits and vegetables?"
"No, I eat food.
Fruits, vegetables, what the Bible says we should eat.
Like we don't eat shrimps, crabs, lobsters, and fish without scales.
What about the use of herb?
A lot of people in America smoke herb just to get high, they don't see anything spiritual in the experienceS.
Do you believe in it a lot more seriously than 'getting high'?"
Yeah, mun. When you smoke herb you don't just get high. Yeah, though there is kicks there, it flows, yeah.
I can't inject beauty into things if you just want kicks, I meet plenty people who say 'why can't I get any hash?' And they have some and they say, 'Hey mun, you want some?'
And I say no. They say 'I don't like herb, why can't we get any hash.' They just want the kicks."