(Though shot in the arm, Marley would bravely perform anyway.)įriends said he sensed the attack coming-Marley enjoyed a rich prophetic dream life. With the election of a new prime minister imminent, politically motivated gunmen, who were known to Bob, were sent to stop the Smile Jamaica show.

In fact, within days of our conversation, an attempt would be made on his life.

Marley, of course, was a General, on the front line of the culture wars. Then as now, Rastas often dressed like soldiers of a new black-centric yet still diverse army. Bob was readying himself for another leap forward: more global touring, and more using music against the downpressors’ social structure that he called Babylon, which translates into any oppressive top-down system.Ī farmer as well as an artist, Bob knew the movements of the pop charts, just as he understood the less fickle growth cycle of plants. The Jamaican musician’s career, however, was riding high, as the Rastaman Vibration LP, released earlier in the year, had been the first time he reached the U.S. The year we spoke was 1976 and Bob had been telling me about the preparations for a free concert for the people, called 'Smile Jamaica.' Elections were approaching and the downtown body count in political gang wars was already high. So maybe more than 'lifestyle,' the glossy 1980s word it suggests, livity might imply a life cycle – and not the wheely kind. Within livity lies a suggestion of generations of livitys, each a pit stop in an entity’s reincarnations-a belief shared by Rastas, Buddhists and more. Rasta culture is rich in cosmic wordplay. Somehow, it stretches beyond our earthly health to suggest both how and why one is alive, how deftly one plays life’s game. Yet livity also has a more cosmic connotation. Maybe Bob was concerned by my London pallor, but he was encouraging me to uplift my livity-my wholeness and wellbeing, spiritual, mental and physical. Years later, onstage, he still relished stretching out its vowels like molasses over a pulsing Wailers jam. He enjoyed harmonizing irie on the first cut of 'Kaya,' the Wailer's 1971 ballad to weed, together with the other original members, Peter and Bunny. Jamaican patois for a blissed-out mellow mood, it was a local word he loved. 'Trees live for thousands of years, you know? But man-man is supposed to live longer than anything else, so man must reach the time when he knows how to take care of this!' Then he laughed, slapping his thigh in his frayed jeans.Īt that moment, whatever was to come, Bob was feeling irie. 'The most important thing is to keep the physical together,' he said earnestly. The talk was of matters musical, social and political when Bob Marley suddenly leaned forward, to emphasize a point.

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