New Marley musical
A new production about Bob Marley has taken to the stage and had its world premiere in Birmingham, England, on Friday.
One Love: The Bob Marley Musical, written and directed by Kwame Kwei Armah, focuses on the the two-year period — 1976 to 1978 — when Marley fled to London after the assassination attempt on his life in Kingston on December 3, 1976.
During this time the “Reggae King” would produce the acclaimed album Exodus, which stayed on the British album charts for 56 weeks and included the hits Jamming, One Love, Three Little Birds and Waiting in Vain. That album was named Album of the Millennium by Time magazine in 1999.
CEO of the Bob Marley Group of Companies and eldest of the reggae artiste’s children, Cedella Marley has given the new work her blessing. In an interview with the Birmingham Mail she noted something about this project struck a chord.
“I turn down requests to use daddy’s name and work every day, but I gave the musical my blessing because it is beautiful and the message is powerful. I have had a small amount of input, adding little things about the Jamaican patois. I’ve been a little picky with the language, but everyone is great and I couldn’t be more proud. Birmingham is the ideal place for the musical because it’s a diverse city and full of culture, a perfect blending pot. Daddy loved performing there and had a great affection for Britain. We couldn’t find a better place.Daddy had a clear passion for humanity. His music lives on because of that passion and because his words are so relevant right now. We try to preserve his words and share them. This musical is one of the ways we do that and hope to reach new audiences,” she is quoted as saying.
Both Marley and his wife Rita were injured in an assassination attempt after four gunmen broke into their house at 56 Hope Road, which is now the site of the Bob Marley Museum, and opened fire with sub-machine guns.
Cedella Marley remembers that period
“Daddy knew that Jamaica wasn’t the safest place for him, but my parents were very strict about our schooling and they didn’t want to interrupt it so we stayed in Jamaica. Of course we missed him a lot, but we got used to it because he would tour for eight months of the year. Looking back, it felt like we were in a movie; it was quite surreal, but at the time we just went with the flow,” she noted.