Nathalie Mendoza

Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1101-041
26 October 2014

Bob Marley
In this essay I will be expressing four genres of Bob Marley. Bob Marley is a
reggae artist; he was a Rastafarian who expressed his spirituality throughout his
music. Besides being reggae Bob Marley was also known as a peace activist. First
getting this assignment I was very confused on how exactly to write it, and I still
wasnt too sure but I put my best effort into trying to write it correctly. I took my
peers advice and made some major changes to how I would write my final draft. I
added more descriptions of each piece. Hope you enjoy it.
Bob Marley, the first major reggae artist to come out of a Third World
country. He mixed protest music and pop and popularized reggae around the world.
Even after his death his music sounds more vibrant than ever. Bob Marley was also
in the band called The Wailers. I chose to do my genre analysis on Bob Marley
because I love his music and some of the views he had towards the world.
Academic Piece: Everywhere Is War: Peace and Violence in the Life and
Songs of Bob Marley:

The academic piece I chose is written by Brent Hagerman, the whole article
itself is fourteen pages long. I read a couple of the pages and just skimmed
through the rest and picked out a couple of the important things I found out about
Bob Marley. The author shows how Bob Marley is portrayed as a revolutionary and
as a peace icon. The author, Brent says how he suggests that for Marley peace
meant freedom and the presence of universal equal rights. His legacy left behind is
known as a peace promoter and a violence advocator. Brent analyzes one Bob
Marleys song War, he determines that various things can be interpreted from
his song; he advocates world peace, the need for termination of institutional
violence worldwide, etc. One paragraph is named Peaceful Icon? it says how Bob
Marley is known by a message of Peace, Love, and Unity for the world. This is one
of the reasons I really like Bob Marley his passion for peace and unity in the world!
Chris Welch who interviewed Bob Marley said, Marley always preached love and
non-violence. Also Angelica Gallardo said that Marley was and will remain a symbol
of peace and freedom, in a journal Peace Review. In this article Brent quotes a lot
of his lyrics for example, One love, one heart, lets get together and feel all
right, he ties in some of the quotes very well with whatever idea he is trying to
get to the audience. Even though Marley is known to advocate for peace he does
have some violence history. In an interview he quoted saying, I expect if youre

living by the gun, if the gun is the fight, then fire gun. If where you come from,
you fight with sticks and stone, then fight with sticks and stones. Another
paragraph that I found important was the one called Everywhere is War, Marley
had a song called War, Brent in this paragraph shows Marleys views of war and
peace. This song was on the top ten lists of peace songs in an article in Now. His
song War, ties in with his Rastafarian religion. Brent says how in the song he
believes that Marley is quoting his Jah, which is his God in his religion. The lyrics
also speak about war thats going on in the world and he gives examples such as
racism, classism, and colonialism. When Marley would sing about slavery he would
sing it in present tense. This author used very well ethos and logos in this piece.
Website Article: Rolling Stone: Bob Marley
Rolling Stone is a very popular magazine for music and artist so I chose to
read an article of Bob Marley on this website. The author of this article is Evan
Serpick. The website itself is set up very easy to maneuver around to see whatever
you are looking to find of Bob Marley. It has a timeline, news, pictures, reviews,
covers, videos, and a bio tab. The biography tab well very self explanatory has a
summary of Marleys life. It is written into nine paragraphs. Majority of it talks
about Marleys background back in Jamaica and about his band, The Wailers.
What I thought was very neat on this website was the review tabs and the

timeline. The review one just has obviously review, but of Bob Marleys music and
his albums. The timeline has a timeline of things from videos, pictures, news on Bob
Marley chronological in order by the year. The author of this article on the website
wrote everything in terms that makes it easy for different audiences to
understand what is being said.
Visual Pieces:

I also got my photographs from Rolling Stone: Bob Marley. It was under the
gallery called Bob Marley: The Stories Behind 17 Rare and Unseen Images, I
chose these two because along with the pictures that were taken by photographer
Dennis Morris he explains what is going on in the picture when he snapped them and
his memories with Bob Marley at the moment. The first one was a live shot of him
on stage performing. Morris says, Thats one of my favorite live shots of him
because of the way his locks are flying and twirling, In the image you can just see
his expressions and his eyes being closed it shows me how passionate he looks while
he performs. Morris also said in the caption how he Marley could go perform in

places that people couldnt understand him but they would get a feel for his music
just by his expressions. I love just the fact that it is a live shot and his hair is
motion it just gives the reader a perspective of how he performed live. The second
photograph was taken on his first tour in Bournemouth. In the caption for this
image Morris said that he was the first Jamaican who was interest in images
because he realized how powerful the meaning behind an image can be. He also says
how he believed that Marley realized that Morris could get what he wanted the
image to portray. In the image you see Bob Marley either before or after his
performance smoking some marijuana. Bob Marley smoked marijuana as he was a
Rastafarian and thats what they did as a religious sacrament. He believed that
marijuana opened up his spiritual door in which allowed him to be the artist he was.
Short Piece: Quotes
The quote I chose to do for my short piece is, If you are white and you are
wrong, then you are wrong; if you are black and you are wrong, you are wrong.
People are people. Black, blue, pink, green God make no rules about color; only
society make rules where my people suffer, and that why we must have redemption
and redemption now. This is one of my favorite quotes just because I myself am
very against racism too. Bob Marley always protests against racism just as well as
he did against violence. The quote says a lot, and to this day black people are still

being discriminated just because of their skin color. I believe discriminating based
on skin color is just wrong! We are all humans at the end of the day just with
unique skin color. This quote also ties in to another quote Marley says a lot in his
songs too, One Love. One love meaning unity and respect for all people
disregarding race, color, and social status.
Conclusion
Going back and reading through all four pieces that I chose on Bob Marley
differ a lot. They are all giving the reader different information of Bob Marley.
But most of the pieces were informational. All pieces showed what Bob Marley
tried to express throughout his music throughout his career.