What was it about Bob Marley that made him so popular in a world dominated by rock 'n' roll? How is it that he not only has remained the single most successful reggae artist ever, but also has become a shining beacon of radicalism and peace to generation after generation of fans?

Chris Salewicz, the bestselling author of "Redemption Song," the classic biography of Joe Strummer, interviewed Marley in Jamaica in 1979. Now, for the first time, in this thorough, detailed account of Marley's life and the world in which he grew up, Salewicz illuminates everything from the Rastafari religion and the musical scene in Jamaica to the spirit of the man himself. Interviews with dozens of people who knew Marley and have never spoken before are woven through the narrative as Salewicz seeks to explain why Marley has become such an enigmatic and heroic figure, loved by millions all over the world.

Written in collaboration with Family Man and other surviving band members, "Wailing Blues" reveals the truth behind the Marley legacy. It traces the early lives of the Barrett brothers before they joined Marley in the '60s and discusses how reggae artists like Lee 'Scratch' Perry influenced the band. It includes insider accounts of the assassination attempt on Marley and his exile in London. It examines how hits like "Exodus", "Waiting in Vain", "No Woman No Cry", and "I Shot The Sheriff" were made - songs that have helped change the face of popular music.

An inspiring mission to rescue young people from drugs and violence with music
At a time when interest in Brazilian culture has reached an all-time high, and the stories of one person's ability to improve the lives of others has captured so many hearts, this unique book takes readers to the frontlines of a battle raging over control of the nation's poorest areas. "Culture Is Our Weapon" tells the story of Grupo Cultural AfroReggae, a Rio-based organization employing music and an appreciation for black culture to inspire residents of the favelas, or shantytowns, to resist the drugs that are ruining their neighborhoods. This is an inspiring look at an artistic explosion and the best and worst of Brazilian society.

This in-depth analysis of the reggae superstar's poetry in lyric form delves into the songwriter's intellect and spirituality with scholarly precision usually more associated with Bob Dylan or John Lennon. Thought of as the folk poet of the developing world, Marley influenced generations of musicians and writers throughout the Western hemisphere. He was a performer who held true to his heritage, yet is still awarded the status of world rock star. Bob Marley: Lyrical Genius features interviews with key people and musicians who knew the man. It's the perfect companion to Bob Marley's recordings. Previously published by Sanctuary.

Follow the Sacred Journey to Create One of the Lasting Musical Masterpieces of Our Time

Bob Marley is one of our most important and influential artists. Recorded in London after an assassination attempt on his life sent Marley into exile from Jamaica, "Exodus" is the most lasting testament to his social conscience. Named by "Time "magazine as "Album of the Century," Exodus is reggae superstar Bob Marley's masterpiece of spiritual exploration.
Vivien Goldman was the first journalist to introduce mass white audiences to the Rasta sounds of Bob Marley. Throughout the late 1970s, Goldman was a fly on the wall as she watched reggae grow and evolve, and charted the careers of many of its superstars, especially Bob Marley. So close was Vivien to Bob and the Wailers that she was a guest at his Kingston home just days before gunmen came in a rush to kill "The Skip." Now, in "The Book of Exodus," Goldman chronicles the making of this album, from its conception in Jamaica to the raucous but intense all-night studio sessions in London.
But "The Book of Exodus" is so much more than a making-of-a-record story. This remarkable book takes us through the history of Jamaican music, Marley's own personal journey from the Trench Town ghetto to his status as global superstar, as well as Marley's deep spiritual practice of Rastafari and the roots of this religion. Goldman also traces the biblical themes of the Exodus story, and its practical relevance to us today, through various other art forms, leading up to and culminating with Exodus.
Never before has there been such an intimate, first-hand portrait of Marley's spirituality, his political involvement, and his life in exile in London, leading up to histriumphant return to the stage in Jamaica at the Peace Concert of 1978.
Here is an unforgettable portrait of Bob Marley and an acutely perceptive appreciation of his musical and spiritual legacy.

From Kumina to Mento, Ska to Rocksteady, Reggae to Dancehall, Roots to Ragga - this is the authentic story of Jamaican popular music, told for the first time by Jamaicans. In Jamaica, Reggae is more than music - it is the nation's main collective emotional outlet and its chief cultural contribution to the world. Reggae Routes examines the ways in which this uniquely popular music expresses the dreams, desires and realities of the Jamaican people, capturing the `glad to be alive' spirit which makes Jamaican music so popular worldwide. Jamaican music can be roughly divided into four eras, each with a distinctive beat - ska, rocksteady, reggae and dancehall. Ska dates from about 1960 to mid-1966, rocksteady from 1966 to 1968, while from 1969 to 1983 reggae was the popular beat. The reggae era had two phases, `early reggae' up to 1974 and `roots reggae' up to 1983. Since 1983, dancehall has been the prevalent sound. The authors describe each stage in the development of the music, identifying the most popular songs and artists, highlighting the significant social, political and economic issues as they affected the musical scene. While they write from a Jamaican perspective, the intended audience is `any person, local or foreign, interested in a intelligent discussion of reggae music and Jamaica.' A unique feature of this book is the inclusion of historical radio charts from 1960 to 1966 and a provocative reggae all-time top 100 chart. Copiously illustrated with period photos, record jackets and a variety of music memorabilia, this is the best book ever written on reggae.

The history of the original Wailers - Tosh, Livingstone and Marley - as never before told. Over one dramatic decade, a trio of Trench Town R&B crooners, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley, swapped their 1960s Brylcreem hairdos and two-tone suits for 1970s battle fatigues and dreadlocks to become the Wailers - one of the most influential groups in popular music. Now one of our best and brightest non-fiction writers examines for the first time the story of the legendary reggae band. Charting their complex relationship, their fluctuating fortunes, musical peak, and the politics and ideologies that provoked their split, Colin Grant shows us why they were not just extraordinary musicians, but also natural mystics. And, following a trail from Jamaica through Europe, America, Africa and back to the vibrant and volatile world of Trench Town, he travels in search of the last surviving Wailer. 'In Grant's hands life in Trench Town in the 1960's is energetic and theatrical, rich in comedy and tragic irony...This brilliant book is not just about Jamaica, but about ourselves' Guardian

Distillation of Sound focuses on the original music of Jamaica and how, through dub reggae, Jamaican culture was expanded and shifted. It will further the discussion on dub music, its importance to Jamaican culture, and its influence on the rest of the world. Dub music in Jamaica started in the early 1970s and by the end of the decade had influenced an entire population. The music began to use the rhythm track of a song as a song itself and spread quickly throughout the sound systems of the island. The importance of dub music and its influence on the music world frames the discussions in this new book. How dub travelled and distilled to three places in the world is covered in chapters focussing on the rise and spread of dub in New York City, in England and in Japan. Abbey discusses the separation between dub as a product and dub as an act of the engineer. Codifying these two elements, and tracing them, will allow for a more definitive approach to the culture and music of dub. To define it, and its surrounding elements, five of the first albums produced in the genre are discussed in three parameters that help to define and set up the culture of dub music. The albums discussed are Java, Java, Java, Java (Impact All Stars), Aquarius Dub (Herman Chin Loy), Blackboard Jungle Dub (Lee 'Scratch' Perry), The Message Dubwise (Prince Buster), King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown (Augustus Pablo). From the Preface: 'Jamaican music has always been about creating with what is at hand. Taking what is around you and making it into something great is the key to dub and Jamaican culture. This attitude is what this project is about. There is not enough written on the music that has inspired and influenced so many people around the world and this is an addition to the conversation. Dub music fixates on the engineer as a musician and, in doing so, allows for the creator to interact with echnology. Through this, the mixing board and other electronic elements become musical instruments. Now, these technologies are dominant in contemporary music and allow for people to easily create in their own homes. Without the engineers and musicians in the following work, these changes and shifts in technology and music would not have occurred. Dub is also a refiguring of already existing music. What this demonstrates is that music is ever evolving and can be shifted through technology. It also suggests that recorded music can always be modified and expanded upon. In our contemporary world, this modification is seen every day online and in people's daily lives. Dub created a way to view these changes through music. The influence of technology in the development of culture is the key to this work and to our development in society. How technology can be modified, changed, and evolved through the interaction of the engineer is the focus of this project. This work will further the importance of dub music and culture in our society. The definition and distinction between version and dub is also an important element in the following work. Jamaican music needs to be discussed more for its influence and creative force in the entirety of the music world. The author is a professional musician with the groups J. Navarro & the Traitors, Detroit Riddim Crew, and 1592 and a producer of dub, reggae and ska, and a professor of English and literature at Oakland Community College in Michigan, USA. Genuine popular and academic appeal. Will appeal to students and scholars of music and Jamaican culture - and to academic libraries. Has genuine popular appeal to those with an interest in Jamaican culture and music.

With a preface by Bunny Wailer.
Doctor Dread has committed his life to producing reggae music and releasing it on his label, RAS Records. He has become one of the world's foremost reggae producers, and has worked with almost all the genre's icons: Bunny Wailer, Black Uhuru, Ziggy and Damian Marley, Gregory Isaacs, etc. This book, full of behind-the-scenes stories, has shocking chapters that will reveal aspects of reggae never before explored.

An important center of dancehall reggae performance, sound clashes are contests between rival sound systems: groups of emcees, tune selectors, and sound engineers. In World Clash 1999, held in Brooklyn, Mighty Crown, a Japanese sound system and the only non-Jamaican competitor, stunned the international dancehall community by winning the event. In 2002, the Japanese dancer Junko Kudo became the first non-Jamaican to win Jamaica's National Dancehall Queen Contest. High-profile victories such as these affirmed and invigorated Japan's enthusiasm for dancehall reggae. In "Babylon East," the anthropologist Marvin D. Sterling traces the history of the Japanese embrace of dancehall reggae and other elements of Jamaican culture, including Rastafari, roots reggae, and dub music.

Sterling provides a nuanced ethnographic analysis of the ways that many Japanese involved in reggae as musicians and dancers, and those deeply engaged with Rastafari as a spiritual practice, seek to reimagine their lives through Jamaican culture. He considers Japanese performances and representations of Jamaican culture in clubs, competitions, and festivals; on websites; and in song lyrics, music videos, reggae magazines, travel writing, and fiction. He illuminates issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class as he discusses topics ranging from the cultural capital that Japanese dancehall artists amass by immersing themselves in dancehall culture in Jamaica, New York, and England, to the use of Rastafari as a means of critiquing class difference, consumerism, and the colonial pasts of the West and Japan. Encompassing the reactions of Jamaica's artists to Japanese appropriations of Jamaican culture, as well as the relative positions of Jamaica and Japan in the world economy, "Babylon East" is a rare ethnographic account of Afro-Asian cultural exchange and global discourses of blackness beyond the African diaspora.

A hybrid of reggae and rap, reggaeton is a music with Spanish-language lyrics and Caribbean aesthetics that has taken Latin America, the United States, and the world by storm. Superstars--including Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, and Ivy Queen--garner international attention, while aspiring performers use digital technologies to create and circulate their own tracks. "Reggaeton" brings together critical assessments of this wildly popular genre. Journalists, scholars, and artists delve into reggaeton's local roots and its transnational dissemination; they parse the genre's aesthetics, particularly in relation to those of hip-hop; and they explore the debates about race, nation, gender, and sexuality generated by the music and its associated cultural practices, from dance to fashion.

The collection opens with an in-depth exploration of the social and sonic currents that coalesced into reggaeton in Puerto Rico during the 1990s. Contributors consider reggaeton in relation to that island, Panama, Jamaica, and New York; Cuban society, Miami's hip-hop scene, and Dominican identity; and other genres including "reggae en espanol," underground, and dancehall reggae. The reggaeton artist Tego Calderon provides a powerful indictment of racism in Latin America, while the hip-hop artist Welmo Romero Joseph discusses the development of reggaeton in Puerto Rico and his refusal to embrace the upstart genre. The collection features interviews with the DJ/rapper El General and the reggae performer Renato, as well as a translation of "Chamaco's Corner," the poem that served as the introduction to Daddy Yankee's debut album. Among the volume's striking images are photographs from Miguel Luciano's series Pure Plantainum, a meditation on identity politics in the bling-bling era, and photos taken by the reggaeton videographer Kacho Lopez during the making of the documentary "Bling'd: Blood, Diamonds, and Hip-Hop."

Contributors. Geoff Baker, Tego Calderon, Carolina Caycedo, Jose Davila, Jan Fairley, Juan Flores, Gallego (Jose Raul Gonzalez), Felix Jimenez, Kacho Lopez, Miguel Luciano, Wayne Marshall, Frances Negron-Muntaner, Alfredo Nieves Moreno, Ifeoma C. K. Nwankwo, Deborah Pacini Hernandez, Raquel Z. Rivera, Welmo Romero Joseph, Christoph Twickel, Alexandra T. Vazquez

Throughout Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and America, Bob Marley represents far more than just the musician who translated spiritual and political beliefs into hypnotic, hard-hitting songs such as "Get Up, Stand Up," "No Woman, No Cry," and "Jammin'." Marley was born in rural Jamaica and reared in the mean streets of Kingston's Trenchtown his ascent to worldwide acclaim, first with The Wailers- Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone- and later as a solo artist, is a riveting story of the spiritual awakening of a uniquely talented individual.Now, for the first time, a symphony of voices has joined together to offer perspective on one of this century's most compelling figures. Dealing with Bob Marley as a man and myth, from his "rude boy" teens to international fame and his tragic death at the age of thirty-six, Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright then explores the larger picture, examining Marley as the spokesman for Jamaica's homegrown religion of Rastafarianism, as a flash point for the pressure cooker of Jamaican politics, and his unique status as the first pop musical superstar of the so-called "Third World."

More than a listener's guide, this book reveals the rich historical development of a regional music that is now embraced worldwide. Packed with incisive essays, ratings and reviews of 2,700 recordings, plus fantastic photos and engaging biographies, this guide captures the allure of reggae, calypso, dancehall, rock steady, soca and other evocative styles of the entire English-speaking Caribbean region past and present. Featured artists include: Bob Marley and the Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, Lord Kitchener, Arrow, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Buju Banton, Brother Resistance, Prince Buster, David Rudder, Wailing Souls and many others.

Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, the Itals, the Ethiopians-they all dropped dazzling proverbs into their best known reggae tunes.

"What come bad in the morning, can't come good in the evening."

"They love to give you a basket to carry water."

"The harder the battle be, ago sweeter the victory."

In "Reggae Wisdom: Proverbs in Jamaican Music" Swami Anand Prahlad looks at the contexts and origins of these proverbs, using them as a cultural sheet music toward understanding the history of Jamaican culture, Rastafari religion, and the music that is that culture's worldwide voice.

Prahlad's fieldwork in Jamaica is extensive. For him, the study of Jamaican sayings and music is not only an academic endeavor. It is also a personal and poetic exploration. Prahlad says, "I am writing not only as a folklorist but also as a member of the international reggae community, a group of people around the globe who look to this music for its joy, wisdom, and strength."

His unique, groundbreaking study argues that contemporary reggae artists are self-styled Rastafari priests for an international community of listeners and devotees. These "warrior/priests" serve as educators, healers, prophets, advisers, and social critics. Their proverbs become sources of strength and inspiration for members of the reggae community.

Several chapters in "Reggae Wisdom" offer important insights into Rastafari ideology, the history of reggae, the life and folk culture of Jamaican communities, and the recording scene that gave rise to roots reggae. One chapter, based on the author's fieldwork in Jamaica, considers the use of proverbs by ordinary individuals in Jamaican society. Other chapters focus on proverbs used by musical artists such as Bob Marley. Chapters also explore the contexts of album cover art, promotional materials, concert venues, and performance styles and conventions.

As Prahlad says, "What better way to enter this rich and powerful, eclectic world of sound and sense than through the magical world of proverbs?"

Swami Anand Prahlad is an associate professor of English and anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is the author of "African American Proverbs in Context" (University Press of Mississippi).

One of the twentieth century's most iconic cultural figures, Bob Marley was responsible for popularising reggae music throughout the world. His unique blend of politically conscious lyrics and melody won him legions of fans far beyond the Caribbean. But Marley was no mere pop star: his strong attachment to Rasta beliefs and practices and his fierce hostility to the injustice of 'Babylon' made him an important spokesman for the dispossessed. In this new biography, Garry Steckles follows Marley's eventful life through the early days in rural Jamaica, arrival in Kingston, first recordings and performances to his spectacular status as an international superstar. Throughout he analyses Marley's political and religious beliefs, while also concentrating on his relationships with fellow musicians, family and influential figures such as Chris Blackwell. A chapter focusing on Marley's long-term legacy explores what the musician contributed to world music and what the religious believer gave to Rastafarianism.