Marleys mellow mood

Gabriel Singh
Sunday, May 13, 2007

BOB Marleys influence on Fiji was, and is, immeasurable. He paved the way for the greatest era in local music, giving birth to an unrivalled passion and creativity.

Marley, the Rastafarian modern-day prophet and undisputed king of reggae died aged 36 this week 26 years ago, leaving behind a legacy of empowerment for the down-trodden of the world.

In stepping into eternal life and claiming his seat on the left hand of Jah, Marley became larger than in life.

Today, his influence continues to spread despite the efforts of the establishment to portray reggae and Rasta as marijuana mania.

Although reggae arrived in Fiji as early as the mid-1970s, it was largely ignored by the then still rock-loving locals.

There was little original work emanating here, although bands like the Dragon Swingers, Ulysses, Red Fink and Tumbling Dice, to name but a few, had enviable reputations as full-blown rock outfits.

Tourists arriving off cruise liners would clog the Golden Dragon nightclub and later Lucky Eddies to check the sounds of the premier groups that were making waves across the Pacific.

It was not unusual to find even larger crowds, often young, under age people, sitting outside the clubs to, as the Dobbie Brothers sing, Listen to the music.

But, while the country rocked and rolled on, roots rock was slowly but surely spreading it primal pulse among those very young people, many of whom would grow up basking in Marleys shadow.

Pockets of adherents were already gathering in the homes of the lucky few who had LPs or audio cassettes of albums like Burnin, which with songs like Small Axe, and its powerful biblical references, struck a deep chord in all who heard.

Little was known of Marley then, there were hardly any images of him available, certainly none in the media here.

Today, Marleys image is everywhere from Tee-shirts to banners and posters even in a supposedly religiously Christian State, the Rasta prophets visage outranks that of Christ himself in popularity.

With the advent of video, people began seeing the man himself in some of his greatest performances.

Countryman did for reggae here what Woodstock had for rock globally. But, it was Marleys very death and his disco-challenging Uprising album that finally emancipated the minds music lovers here.

Suva, at the time, was as wild as the West. Gang fights erupted violently, engulfing neighbourhoods.

Youths on every street, every suburb deemed it their duty to be brutally, even mindlessly macho.

Best of friends in school would often find themselves in the middle of pitched battles facing each other, knowing any backing down would lead to his own gang turning on him.

It was a time when one trod very, very lightly when on any turf other than ones home turf and even there, there was always a downpresser man.

In that pressure cooker atmosphere, Marley and his reggae had a startlingly calming influence on the youth, no doubt because with Marley came a greater desire to experiment with marijuana.

But marijuana had been around in Fiji for a long time before. The Fiji-Indian community is littered with tales of their ancestors squatting on the sands of Nukulau, the quarantine base for indentured labourers, and whacking a chillum at sunset, wondering where into the green mass they could see across the horizon they would be sent.

Before reggae, with its magnetic pull, drew marijuana out into the open, it was pun-pun, the sniffing of benzene, from which the ghetto and inner city youth graduated to booze. It was the perfect combination for igniting the mindless gang wars.

Redemption Song changed all that. For once, the youth sat and listened. Having a toke helped in slowing them enough so they could not only listen but actually hear. Suddenly everybody started latching onto the Jamaican patois. More importantly, it put to end gang wars over nothing.

In a miraculous transformation, rival youths could actually sit and do something together other than fight.

The common denominator was reggae and Marley, Tosh, Wailer, Jacob Miller, I Jah Man all the early angels and saints who pioneered what is today the most popular genre in Fiji.

Suddenly people couldnt get enough of the Tuff Gong.

Fittingly, it was Exodus, no not the Marley album rated by Time Magazine as the Album of the 20th Century, but the pioneering groupies from what was then known as Tombstone.

Led largely by the Heatley and Moore clans, Exodus took reggae public in Fiji, coming in from the cold to astound a generally conservative society.

They quickly established a reputation and a following.

Fittingly, Exodus is still the only reggae band still alive today.

Following Exodus came the greatest band this country has ever seen Rootstrata, whose blend of socially conscious music was decades ahead of its time. Rootstrata, which has given us Pacific anthems like Brother Kanaki, Unemp Lament, Warrior of Love and Street People led a pack of biting reggae sounds.

At the 1987 Cyclone ReggAid, Rootstrata headlined the 12-act charity gig where, for the first time, all of Fijis top reggae acts appeared under one roof. Then band leader Freddy Fesaitu even penned a special song for the concert to raise money for victims of Cyclone Raja.

By then Ben Rabaka had split Roots to drive the rhythm section of the deadly Kings Knights, a young Stephen Heatley brought Purple Haze, Exodus was still pushing its powerful sound and even Gabby Abarigas Gypsies joined the jam.

The then Governor General, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, who opened the show, was deeply impressed by the wealth of talent, even asking one of the organisers whether that overpowering aroma smell in the then National Gymnasium was marijuana, jokingly saying it smelt better than cigarettes.

Ratu Sir Penaia was even more impressed when the proceeds of the show were handed over to him at Government House a month later that he asked to make arrangements for Rootstrata to join the army jazz band to play at that years Queens Birthday garden party.

Sadly, a month later a crazy colonel raped this country, unleashing a greed and sowing the seeds for a racism we are still reeling from today.

Of them all, Rootstrata stands the tallest for producing outstandingly original work, with even a tribute to Marley called Brother Bob Marley made up by putting lines from Marleys songs into a totally new song.

A few years earlier they had been the first group to have a concert at the Suva Civic Auditorium broadcast live nationally over Radio Fiji.

But that song was the first tribute to Marley song I heard and remains by far the best, although theres some new stuff cooking in a part of Raiwaqa that everyone should be raving about in the not too distant future, hopefully.

Rastafari.

BOB Marleys mother, Cedella Marley Booker, now 81, believes her son was killed.

The Rastafarian prophet and reggae pioneer who has given a meaning in life to millions of people across the world died this week 26 years ago, aged 36.

His death, at the prime of his career, shocked family, friends, music lovers and the Rasta faithful.

Marley died in Miami on his way back to Jamaica after undergoing a radical cancer treatment in the then West Germany.

The matriarch Marley, pictured below, who now lives in Florida, in an interview with the Classical Reggae Interviews website, lamented the death of her world-changing son, the Third Worlds greatest hero.

On Marleys untimely death, she said: "I dont think that Bob have cancer. If Bob have cancer, I think it was injected in him in some way.

"I really do think so. I dont think he really had cancer."

She does not say who she means by "they" but her claims add fuel to Rasta suspicions that Marley, whose rise, progress and growing influence over the world was viewed with alarm by the Central Intelligence Agency, did not die a natural death.

She believes Marley was "got at" in Miami. "

I leave all vengeance to God," she said.