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Bob Marley Bound for Africa
Think of it as an exodus of sorts.
Bob Marley's widow plans to exhume the remains of the late reggae king and rebury them in his "spiritual resting place" of Ethiopia on what would have been his 60th birthday.
"We are working on bringing his remains to Ethiopia," Rita Marley told the Associated Press Wednesday. "It is part of Bob's own mission."
In a case of odd timing, the announcement by the Cuban-born Rita Marley, a former member of her husband's backing band the Wailers, comes a little more than a month after the Rastafarian rocker's estate lobbied the government of Jamaica--where he's currently buried--to proclaim him a national hero.
Bob Marley died of cancer in 1981 at age 36, but his positive vibes and soul-stirring music that offered a message of love, hope and freedom continues to resonate. His greatest-hits album, Legend, featuring such classic cuts as "Redemption Song," "No Woman, No Cry," "I Shot the Sheriff," "One Love" and "Get Up, Stand Up," has sold more than 10 million copies in the U.S. alone. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, with Rita Marley accepting the award for her late husband.
Marley's missus, whom he married in 1966, said the government of Ethiopia has lent its support to the reburial. The rocker's new resting place will be Shashemene, a town 155 miles south of the country's capital, Addis Ababa, where hundreds of the singer's spiritual kin, the Rastafarians, have resided since the days of Ethiopia's last emperor, Haile Selassie.
Selassie ruled the country from 1930 to 1974 and is revered within the Rastafarian faith as its one true god for providing land for the messianic movement to flourish. Believers often advocate black unity, grow their hair into dreadlocks, sing revivalist hymns, use marijuana as a religious sacrament and listen to lots of reggae.
More than 20,000 Rastafarians in Jamaica considered Ethiopia paradise, aka Zion, which Bob Marley alluded to in some of his most famous songs, including "Africa Unite" and "Exodus."
Most Marley fans view the legendary entertainer as a symbol of Jamaica, and are likely wondering just what his widow has been smoking to make her want to relocate his remains. But Rita Marley insists this is what her husband would have wanted.
"Bob's whole life is about Africa, it is not about Jamaica," she said. "How can you give up a continent for an island? He has a right for his remains to be where he would love them to be. This was his mission. Ethiopia is his spiritual resting place. With the 60th anniversary this year, the impact is there and the time is right."
To honor the reggae star's life, Rita Marley, along with the African Union and the U.N, is organizing a month-long tribute in Ethiopia dubbed Africa Unite, that will include a film festival, symposiums, a gala fundraiser and a concert set for Feb. 6, what would have been the musican's 60th birthday, in Addis Ababa. The event that will air in Africa be beamed to other countries.
Among those slated to perform are members of the Marley family, R&B star India.Arie and such prominent African musicans as Senegal's Baaba Maal and Youssou N'Dour and Benin's Angelique Kidjo. Money raised from the events will benefit the country's poor families.
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