Ziggy Marley on music, activism and growing up with Bob
Ziggy Marley – musician, activist, comic book producer and son of Bob – chats ahead of his headlining spot at Womadelaide.
Confidential
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THINK you had an interesting childhood? Consider this.
Ziggy Marley’s dad Bob was a genuine superstar – part musician, part prophet, a glimmer of hope in violence-plagued Jamaica, Rastafarian royalty.
His mum, Rita, was Bob’s rock and the core of his unique backing group the I Threes.
At 8.30pm on the third of December, 1976, seven armed men burst into the compound at 56 Hope Road where Bob, Rita and a number of other people lived.
They shot Bob in the chest and arm, they shot Rita in the head.
Bob’s manager Don Taylor was shot in the legs and torso, and employee Louis Griffiths collected a bullet in his torso.
Eight-year-old Ziggy was across town at the time, staying in another house with his siblings.
“The night they got shot, we were awoken by a knocking at the door,” the singer told Oprah Winfrey in 2016.
“It was the police, and they swooped us up. They kind of carried us and took us to this hideaway up, way up in the hills outside of Kingston.”
Remarkably, nobody died in the raid, which was blamed on everyone from political rivals and the CIA to common street gangsters.
What we do know, though, is that just two days later Bob and Rita were supposed to headline the Smile Jamaica Concert, a huge outdoor festival attended by 80,000 music fans.
The gunmen, as far as anyone knows, were still at large and a number of musicians pulled out due to the volatile atmosphere.
Not Ziggy’s parents.
No, they play for 90 minutes, bandaged up, defiant.
He sings War, Rita by his side, her head still wrapped in hospital bandages.
Bob lifts his shirt and shows his wounds to the adoring crowd, almost daring someone to take a shot.
Now that is an interesting childhood.
And according to Ziggy, that energy, love and chaos helped shape who he is today.
“It was excitement, energy, dark energy, light energy, it was dangerous, it was safe – it was everything, you know,” Ziggy says of his upbringing in Kingston, his voice echoing the thick Jamaican patois of his father.
“But I’m happy that I grew up in that time. It imprinted ideas of helping people and perseverance – I learned a lot from my father and mother during that time.”
The young Ziggy also got a musical education that money couldn’t buy, learning not only from his parents but also from the reggae music luminaries that orbited in the Marley universe.
“Toots, Burning Spear, all of these guys, they know me since I was a baby,” Ziggy says.
“When we see each other now, it’s like family. I grew up with them being like uncles. It was a very beautiful time.”
When quizzed on what his father, who died of cancer in 1981, would make of the current confused state of the world, Ziggy is pragmatic.
“I don’t think it would be this way if he was still here, you know what I’m saying?” he says.
“All that energy that was taken out of this world when he died, that energy was so powerful. The world’s energy changed, and you couldn’t expect the world to be the same without that energy in it. It think the world would be much different, actually.”
The 51-year-old Ziggy’s recording career kicked off in a school band called The Seven Do Bees, but his real break came when he teamed up with siblings Sharon, Cedella and Stephen to form The Melody Makers.
The group’s first single was Children Playing in the Streets, a song written for the group by Bob, but it was the 1988 record Conscious Party, with its hit song Tomorrow People, that broke Ziggy in Australia.
We’ve had a soft spot for him ever since, and he apologises for not getting down to visit us more often.
“I’ve been trying to come to Australia for five or six years, but it’s been hard to get over there,” he says.
“Now thanks to the Womad festival we have a chance to come and play music for the Australian people. I’m very happy, and I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. I played Womad in England and it’s a good, good vibe. The best man.”
Ziggy is an artist with fingers in many pies.
Beyond recording music, he is a philanthropist, activist and, back in 2011, he became a comic book producer when he released a graphic novel called Marijuanaman.
It was part of his effort to usher through laws to legalise cannabis in California, a push that was ultimately successful.
“I smoked ‘erb before it was legal and it was never a problem,” Ziggy says.
“‘Erb is ‘erb. But the legalisation is a good thing because it keeps people out of prison, but you have to be careful when things get too big, too corporate. You can get rid of some of the essence of the thing if it grows out of proportion and people start working just for the profit, and the quality suffers.
“We used to know just this one guy, this one farmer, and he had the good ‘erb, you know? Now it’s like thousands of greenhouses and light bulbs and all types of concoctions.”
On the activism front, Ziggy has leant his support to groups like Extinction Rebellion, and his latest record – Rebellion Rises – is full of songs imploring people to treat the earth, and each other, better.
“That was last album was about, and those are the songs I will be singing when I come to Australia,” he says.
“We are seeing both sides of the equation – the negativity, the disregard for civility when it comes to treating others. But still we are seeing a lot of people rising up, to stand up against that. And that uprising I feel like is worldwide. And it’s the young generation too. The children are making a lot of effort to hold the governments responsible to do the right thing by the planet and the people.”
It’s the kids, Ziggy says, who can save the world. It’s why he’s made a children’s records, written picture books, appeared in movies such as Shark Tale (he was one of the Rasta jellyfish) and even appeared on Sesame Street.
“I’m working on a new family album right now,” he says.
“Children are vitally important, the most important thing. We can’t change the minds of the old people who are running the world right now. They’re not gonna change. The generation coming must have a good example to follow with a good foundation in humanity.
“This is what it’s going to take for the world to prosper. A lot of people care about economics. Peace is how we’re going to prosper. Love is how we prosper. But there is the machine running alongside that profits off of war, profits off of hate. That’s why the children are vitally important. They are the foundation.”
SEE: Womadelaide, March 6-9, Botanic Park
TICKETS: womadelaide.com.au