Marley, Ziggy

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Ziggy Marley

Singer, songwriter, guitarist

Ziggy Marley has barely entered his twenties, but he has already been praised as one of the most important figures in reggae music today, as well as potentially one of the biggest international stars of the 1990s. His musical precociousness is hardly surprising, as he is the son of two of Jamaica’s leading musicians, Bob and Rita Marley. That background does present certain problems, however—such as creating his own identity and enduring continual comparisons to his father.

It was Bob Marley who familiarized the world with reggae music and the Rastafarian faith; his early death was deeply mourned by the many people from all races and religions who regarded him as a prophet. His death plunged the Jamaican music scene into a malaise that persists today. Ziggy was only twelve when his father died, but even then the resemblance between the two was uncanny. Gregory Stephens observed in Whole Earth Review that “Ziggy is like a reflection of his father Bob, a young echo. As time goes on it is almost scary how this reflection seems to grow more and more like the original, in spirit if not always in style.” And since the younger Marley has continued with the musical career on which his father launched him at the age of ten, he is now “the one who many people hope will be reggae music’s redeemer,” according to Rolling Stone contributor Anthony DeCurtis.

“Ziggy has in fact been groomed for the role of Bob Marley’s successor from an early age,” stated Stephens. “As Marley’s eldest son, he was widely seen as heir to the heritage, and he was given moorings for the journey by a mixture of strict but worldly Rastas and Jesuits.” This privileged upbringing, which included occasional world travel and onstage appearances with the Wailers, was in sharp contrast to Bob Marley’s youth. He grew up fending for himself in Kingston’s ghettoes and earned a reputation as “Tuff Gong” the street fighter long before he was known as a singer. By the time his children were born, however, he was Jamaica’s favorite musician. He had the means to protect his family and was eager to do so. Yet even Ziggy, the so-called “Crown Prince of Reggae,” could not completely escape Jamaica’s pervasive violence: in 1975 both his parents were wounded by gunshots in a politically related attack, and in later years he would see several of his father’s associates slain under similar circumstances.

Bob Marley’s desire to shield his children from the seamier side of the music industry led him to ban them from the recording studio when they were very young. Yet as early as 1975 he had written something with them in mind: “Children Playing in the Streets,” a melodic protest song detailing the desperate conditions

For the Record…

Given name, David Marley; born 1968, in Jamaica; son of Robert Nesta (a musician) and Alpharita Constantia (a musician; maiden name, Anderson) Marley. Religion: Rastafarian.

Lead singer and songwriter for the Melody Makers (Sharon Marley, Cedella Marley, Stephen Marley), 1979—.

Awards: Grammy nomination, 1985.

Addresses: Home —Kingston, Jamaica.

under which most of Jamaica’s children live. In 1979, aware of the cancer that would soon take his life, he personally brought Ziggy into the studio to record the song, perhaps as a way of handing down his musical legacy. Backing vocals were provided by Sharon Marley (Rita’s oldest daughter, whom Bob had adopted) and two of the couple’s other children, Cedella and Stephen. All proceeds from the sale of the single were donated to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

For several years the family quartet, known as the Melody Makers, performed mainly on special occasions, such as Bob Marley’s state funeral in 1981. Ziggy had begun to write original material for the group, however. From the start, his lyrics reflected his unusual upbringing and serious outlook. Stephens declared, “The images that have come out of this man-child’s imagination remind me of the paintings done by the children of Guatemala and El Salvador. They are all images of a world at war.” In 1985 the Melody Makers released their first album, Play the Game Right, followed in 1986 by Hey World! Neither was particularly successful; in spite of the social consciousness and political commentary evident in Ziggy Marley’s lyrics, the Melody Makers’ young voices led many in the music industry to dismiss them as just another “kiddie group.” Jordan Harris, formerly an executive with A & M Records, attributes the lackluster sales of Play the Game Right and Hey World! to poor handling by record company EMI America. He recalled in Rolling Stone that he was terribly disappointed when A & M lost the bid for the Melody Makers’ contract to EMI: “What bothered me most is not that I wasn’t able to sign the band then…but that the people that signed them I don’t think understood what they had. I think they thought they were signing Musical Youth or some lightweight pop-type thing.”

Rita Marley was of a similar mind. Besides failing to provide adequate promotion for the Melody Makers, EMI was pushing Ziggy to leave his brothers and sisters behind for a solo career. Ziggy emphatically rejected this idea. He told DeCurtis: “Blood t’icker than water….I am not a youth who is on any trip to become a big star. You come to know how important family is around you. I’ve been with my family singing from 1979 until this day, and now you walk up to me and say I must leave them alone and come to myself? What purpose would that serve? Me wouldn’t feel good about that, and then the music wouldn’t feel good about that either.” Accordingly, Rita took her children to Virgin Records, which was committed to keeping the Melody Makers intact. Jordan Harris, who had since moved from A & M to Virgin, was elated. He expressed the utmost confidence in the Melody Makers’ future: “I really think this sound and this music could be the music of the Nineties. Three years, five years from now, Ziggy Marley could be one of the most important musicians in the world.”

Alex Sadkin was scheduled to produce the Melody Makers’ first album for Virgin, but he was killed in an automobile accident near Kingston before the project got underway. Production was turned over to Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, the husband-and-wife team from the group Talking Heads. They were familiar with Sadkin’s approach, as he had worked on the Talking Heads’ Speaking in Tongues album, and they had worked with reggae artists before on their Tom Tom Club recordings. Under their direction, much of the recording for the Melody Makers’ third album, Conscious Party, was done in New York. Deeply religious and heavily influenced by daily Bible readings, Ziggy shocked many New Yorkers at casual jam sessions with his impromptu lyrics warning against drinking and premarital sex. When finished, Conscious Party was an example of cultural cross-fertilization. It included some of Jamaica’s most distinguished reggae artists as well as guest contributions from Keith Richards, Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads, the Ethiopian band Dalbol, and the cast of the Broadway musical Sarafina!

Weymouth and Frantz strove to augment rather than to change the Melody Makers’ sound, delivering what Rolling Stone’s David Wild called perhaps “the best-sounding reggae album you’ll ever hear—both pleasantly high-tech and appropriately rootsy.” Audio reviewer Michael Terson also praised the producers for creating an “ingenious” sound that “delivers strength on the reggae backbeat and on the rock downbeat,” but noted that they “wisely stayed pretty much out of the way of Ziggy, his siblings, and the band….In the end, it all comes down to Ziggy Marley. Here, his charisma blooms. He sounds eerily like Father Bob, but Ziggy’s songs are so strong that they blunt any sound-alike criticism….Marley is about to become a huge international star. He’s got it all, and so does Conscious Party.” Wild also emphasized that Conscious Party represented a personal triumph for the young songwriter: “There’s one hell of a shadow hanging over Ziggy Marley, and it is testament to the beauty and strength of Conscious Party that instead of being an object of morbid fascination the album is one of the brightest, most life-affirming records in recent history.”

The enthusiastic critical reception of Conscious Party marked a turning point for Ziggy Marley, when he began to be accepted on his own terms. Pondering the musician’s future in Whole Earth Review, Stephens noted that, thus far, Marley’s lyrics have consisted mainly of “strident calls to action and ‘bald slogans.’ They are catchy, but limited by the abstracted idealism of a youth who has an unusually broad, but also somewhat insular, view of the world. It will be interesting to hear what Ziggy comes up with when he comes home from the battlefield to write about love and other shades of gray.” He concluded that Marley was bound to become even more popular, stating: “Anyone who can’t see the economic as well as artistic potential of…Ziggy Marley hasn’t yet understood the Messianic fervor that runs among Third World peoples, especially in Jamaica. Jamaican music has been able to infect nerve centers around the world—particularly New York and London—spreading a less severe case of Messianic expectations among American Dream refugees and entertainment consumers. So there is a potentially immense audience for a young, sexy, fashionable, implicitly spiritual Third World superstar.”

Marley is also a key figure in a fierce struggle currently taking place in Jamaica’s musical world. Since Bob Marley’s death, traditional reggae, with its weighty sociopolitical and religious messages, has been largely supplanted by a bawdy, rap-related music known as “Dance Hall.” Traditionalists hope that Ziggy Marley can attract Jamaica’s youth to the spiritual values of Rastafarianism, much as his father did in the 1970s. Jimmy Guterman remarked in Rolling Stone that “as children of the late Bob Marley, David ‘Ziggy’ Marley and the Melody Makers practically carry the mantle of reggae themselves.” That is a responsibility which they are well qualified to handle, however, as the writer asserts in his review of their latest release, One Bright Day: “This is a formidable band even if you toss aside ideas about tradition. Ziggy sounds as much like his father as Julian Lennon sounds like John, but Ziggy has found a way to use that as a springboard: He accepts the familiarity and tries to add something new. At his best, Ziggy displays a voice that is his alone.” Asked by DeCurtis if he found the endless comparisons to his father to be an oppressive burden, Marley replied stoically, “I am myself…and I have been myself every time. I never try to run from the truth….Me and my father have something in common which you can’t hide and you can’t run from, you know?”