One of the more reserved, soft-spoken members of the Marley clan, briefly stepped out of his comfort zone a few days ago, to voice deep concern over the direction in which certain players have taken Reggae music.

According to Julian Marley, efforts of some people to place the music at a higher level, even in the face of a great need for injecting the country’s music and culture with new life and power, have been for too little.

He argues that reggae is big, but it is not getting the treatment it deserves. “Reggae music a weh we play,” affirmed the British born son of Bob Marley.

With striking resemblace and manner of his iconic father, the 36-year-old musical prince defended his rich heritage in a most fortright way.

“Right now is reggae music is weh we deal wid. We travel all over the world and reggae music is great in many many other places. But right now in Jamaica, you don’t find seh the roots is really flourishing dat much. Because of what reason? I’m not sure, but when you travel the world you find out sey, the roots is still love all over the world.”

Christened Julian Recardo Marley at birth, the entertainer affectionately called Juju, who spent his childhood between Jamaica and England, added. “What I and I as Jamaicans and reggae people need to do is acknowledge these things and groom our reggae music again, because the market is still out there. The people waan hear some good music.”

As he bemoaned the decline in approach for the kind of music for which his father is legendary, Julian Marley, argues that there is too much negative messages in the music of today.

“In this time you have a whole heap of different messages being passed around in the music now a days, y’know. You have this negativity thing which is being instilled into the children minds coming up. That all them must know when dem grow up is wah, gun shot and drugs or young girls or party every night. When right now we have a lot of very important things fi even deal wid as a people,” he added.

“So, as I sey, we need to nourish this music as reggae music. Because we travel all over and we get to see the love. And when we come home we nah hear dem tune yah. Just the other day me ask someone if dem know Dennis Brown and dem sey no. And the person is about 30, and I’m saying wow!”

The customarily calm, unassuming member of the Marley lineage, added in anecdotal manner, “Me travel to Switzerland, and me travel to Turkey, some place weh you wouldn’t even know sey reggae music deh deh so, when you reach deh di amount a roots you a hear, you sey wow, these people are eating from our root.”

“When we are here don’t even get to eat from our root because we are eating from somebody’s else root. Like the hip hop root or dis element root when we have our own root. So me want di people dem fi know right now reggae music is big and we a deal wid it small….when you travel you get fi see how big reggae music is and how fi market it.”

Julian Marley gave this exclusive interview to the Sunday Observer in between recording sessions at the studio at the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston where he is working on his fourth album. He also spoke about the current project that does not yet have a name, being produced by himself and brothers Stephen and Damian.

“The heartbeat brought us to Jamaica at this time. Jamaica is our place. We are here right now in the studio working on a new project. We are here basically building up some vibes and just working. But we are here naturally, because of our love, our family, y’know,” he explained.

“Everywhere we go we encounter great fans. People weh love the music, reggae music and the whole message that we carry. We travel all over. We travel Europe, we travel America. Europe had a lot of love fi reggae music from inna di 60s, 70s. But right now everywhere we go we get a good vibe. We went to Greece in the last couple of months. This is the first mi ever really did a tour in Greece. Normally we would probably did a one show, but this time we ended up doing several shows. So that was a brand new set of fans.”

His previous albums are Lion In The Morning, Time and Space and Awake which won a Grammy nomination. “Each of them is a step so far. So we just a make more steps,” Julian Marley said.