"Jah love is the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob." "Glorious things have been spoken of you, O City of God." "I'll make mention to Rahab and Babylon to them that know I." "With Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia, it shall be said this man was born there." "And the highest himself shall establish the earth." "Jah Rastafari." "His fiery chant honoured the holiness of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia." "Bob Marley, the Third World's first international superstar, spread the music of reggae throughout the world, and with it the revelations of his mystical Rastafarian faith." "His songs were all parables, messages of faith and warning." "Bob's cry of "Exodus!" was a siren anthem to all the world's down pressed to leave the wickedness of Babylon and make the march back to the holy land of Ethiopia." "I think Bob Marley's message is toward universal peace, which I think is very good." "It's so positive, it's about the most positive spiritual force on this planet." "It's bringing a lot of people together, keeping us together, which we need." "As Bob finished off a blistering set, he carried a secret he chose not to share:" "Bob Marley had cancer." "The fiery, tough kid who conquered the slums of West Kingston and led The Wailers to worldwide glory, was now almost 35." "Said to be gifted at prophecy since childhood," "Bob predicted he would die at 36." "Listen to Bob's prophecies and messages, recorded in America in 1 979 and stored in a vault until now." "In November 1 930, almost 49 years ago to the day," "Ras Tafari was crowned King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the conquering lion of the tribe of Judah." "Haile Selassie, king of Ethiopia." "In 1 955, 25 years later, the Emperor set aside 500 acres of land for black peoples of the West who wished to return to the motherland." "What importance should these facts have for black people of the world?" "What importance do these facts have for the black people of the world?" "The first fact is, them have land in Africa, right." "The next fact is that Christ..." "No, the whole thing is when Christ..." "Christ then will return as King of Kings, Lord of Lords, conquering lion of Judah." "I and I see His Majesty as the Christ that the Bible talk about." "Bob always performed with a banner of the Emperor behind him." "Before Selassie was crowned Emperor, he was called Ras, or Prince, Tafari, hence the name of the Rastafarian faith." "The Rastafari movement start the same time as His Majesty crowned." "King of Kings, his name Ras Tafari." "That's when the Bible reveal Him." "The whole thing knit together." "So that is where the Rastafari movement start." "The father's land was Ethiopia, ruled by Selassie in a line of kings that stretched back 3,000 years to the time of Solomon and Sheba." "The foundations of Rastafarianism were established by Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican firebrand who started the Back To Africa movement in the early 1 900s." "In Psalm 68, Garvey found a sign, "Princes shall come out of Egypt." ""Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God."" "Yeah, Marcus Garvey said, "We must look for a king in the East " ""a black king."" "In 1 930, His Majesty crowned and I and I sight him, because that's when Marcus Garvey had the deal with Africa." "It's just the truth." "The only wrong thing about it is that Christ, him come from Africa and him always born in July." "You know, Christ is always a lion-heart." "Anyone who sits on the throne of King David has to be a lion, Judah." "July was the sign of Judah, the lion." "Rastafarians believe Christ was born in July, as was Selassie, the lion of all lions." "The Romans fight the Ethiopians to set up Rome." "So Rome become a symbol in everyone's imagination, instead of Ethiopia and Addis Ababa." "But the reality, not what follows." "The real thing come before men get idea so things like this could happen." "That is the root I come from." "Garvey electrified huge crowds in Harlem, New York, with his cry" ""One God, One Aim, One Destiny," ""Ethiopia, Land of our Fathers."" "But it wasn't long before American blacks began turning away." "He came, he lost his culture, his identity, everything." "He became a slave." "He grew into freedom." "Now, the white person has always been living his normal life, his normal growth, ever since, right." "The black man, now he's getting his freedom, he's trying so hard to balance with the white man." "He's trying to prove that he's just as good and all that." "So he's looking so far away from Rasta, in the opposite direction." "Now, the white people have already experienced middle-class this and that." "So they know what's happening in the world." "They have time to really go and check out the Rasta scene, they see a lot more." "To me, a lot more white people have understood or been attracted to Rasta than blacks, in America." "But Garvey's roots message took hold in Jamaica, it spread through the countryside, even to Nine Miles, a northern hamlet set among Eden-like beauty and desperate poverty." "It was there, on February 6th, 1 945, that Robert Nesta Marley was born." "His father, an English army captain, abandoned him shortly after his birth." "He was raised on a farm by his mother Cedella and grandfather Omariah." "At seven, Bob went to West Kingston to obtain a school education." "There, in the teeming slums, Bob discovered music, becoming part of the ska craze in the early '60s." "He formed a vocal group with Bunny Livingston and Peter Tosh, calling them The Wailers because, he said, they were all born crying." "Proudly displayed at all his performances were banners that reflected the three symbols of Bob's Rasta faith," "Garvey, Selassie and the flag of Ethiopia." "On stage one could see the colours of the Rasta movement:" "green for the colour of the land, black for the skin of its people, red for the blood they had shed and gold for the sun overhead." "And always at the centre, the lion of Judah, defiant and unconquerable." "Africa must unite." "The only place in Africa that has never been colonised is Ethiopia." "So if Africa is going to unite it must unite towards His Majesty and the ideology His Majesty have." "So the whole thing I and I deal with is to show the people the truth." "It's the first natural way of living for man to take power to himself." "Rasta way." "Before man join anything." "Free heart Rasta, you know." "In 1 964, Garvey died and was accorded a hero's funeral in Kingston." "His followers, the Garveyites, walked behind his casket, which was topped by a black star, the symbol of his movement." "His legacy, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, lived on." "In 1 966, Jamaica witnessed the arrival of Haile Selassie." "Garvey's prophesy of a black king now seemed made flesh before all Jamaicans." "The only right thing upon earth is Ras Tafari." "That means regardless of which rights a man have." "If a man deal with Ras Tafari, who'll reveal Himself, because Christ said, "He shall return as the King of Kings."" "As he drove by, Rita, Bob's wife, swore she saw the stigmata, or sign of the crucifixion, on Selassie's hand." "Like many of his countrymen," "Bob became convinced Selassie was Christ come again as Jesus." "I see it as a signs of the time, a judgment, but I know the only thing is Ras Tafari, because God don't make mistake, when he say he come as King of Kings, no guy can come that way," "is him come so, you know?" "That is how I view them things." "After Selassie left, Rastafarian influence spread rapidly." "In defiance of the "baldheads", or non-believers," "Rastas grew their hair into dreadlocks." "For Bob, his dreadlocks were a declaration of his faith." "Dreads meant "dreadful", as in fear and praise of the Almighty, as ordered in Leviticus 21 , verse 5." ""They shall not make baldness upon their head," ""neither shave off the corner of their beard, nor make cuttings in their flesh."" "A Rasta man deal with life forever in this time." "So, then Moses and the man who laid down the rules, when you take a vow to be a Nazareth, you must make the locks of your hair grow." "Now we dreadlocks..." "All dreadlocks, now..." "It keep it to yourself." "In that sense, if you was to trim and shave, maybe you'd end up in a nightclub and you kind of accept it most, the wicked." "When you're a dread, you have confidence to stay and don't get corrupt." "Because it's not everywhere you go, people gonna like it, so you're conscious of that, you stay within yourself." "It's God you deal with, regardless of what men and people want to say." "Bob and the Rasta elders prophesied that Jesus would come again, but in another name." "Because everything God say is true." "Him say seek him first and everything shall be added." "Some people search for Jesus, but Jesus no come again." "Jesus tell us he come in a new name, He could not come again as Jesus." "So in time he come, he come as Ras Tafari - no God, no partial." "He was convinced the West was deceived by looking for The Redeemer in the name of Jesus." "The Pope call him so, the Queen call him so, everyone does." "He no want that name, named Ras Tafari." "When him new name come it shall be dreadful among the heathen." "The beauty about it now is that all the people must hear of Ras Tafari, and the truth must go to them." "The Rastas believe the heathen tried to oppress the true soldiers of Jah, but in a final battle these fallen fighters would see the triumph of their victory." "By 1 97 4, Bob had to deal with disunity within his own band." "Two of the original Wailers, bass singer, Peter Tosh and boyhood friend, Bunny Livingston, quit the group." "Putting together a new line-up featuring the l-Threes, a female vocal trio that included his wife, Rita," "The Wailers blistered through the stadia and concert halls of Europe." "His revolutionary sound won admirers but his journeys exposed the differences between his own people and those in the West." "When people deal with God, that mean one God, God reveal himself, who show kindness and live long and tell the people of the West he care." "So, you know, there shouldn't be really no obstacle again." "The whole thing is, Ras Tafari is the roots of I and I, and that is what he communicates to them people and make them know," ""You are welcome." "This is the land." "I can give them Africa." ""This is your land, the people of the West."" "The competitive materialism Bob witnessed on his tours further convinced him of the need of his people to return to their African roots." "When you check the West, you can see the West is over-built." "I tell you, it over-built." "Because, when a man have a 90 storey high, you have no land to spread out." "And you see Africa, as far as you can look it's pure land." "When I see people suffer in the West, especially black people, I say it really looks silly, it really look foolish." "Because what does the West have to offer, more than some music?" "I mean the today music, that's all that's going on there." "Because I don't see anything else." "And when you look at Africa, Africa stay and wait for those who really know how to develop, and know themselves." "It's not themselves they deal with, like a man only deal with to feed himself." "It's a people, survival of a whole nation of people, black people because we scattered." "Back in Jamaica, not everybody embraced His Majesty's teachings." "Throughout the island, civil war raged between rival political factions." "Now that Bob was an international celebrity, politicians sought to use him as a pawn in their power struggles." "Well, you know, God is good." "So when man tries to turn God, he become a devil." "Because God is God already, so when a man try to become God, he become a devil." "He fight against God." "Wickedness is not the will of God, it's the will of men." "The devil do them things." "If you follow the ways of God, everything is righteous." "Man is destroying his own self." "When Marley returned to his Kingston home, hustlers, gangsters and politicians crowded out the true Rastas." "On the night of November 25th, 1 976, assassins crept into his Hope Street mansion and opened fire." "Bob, along with Rita and his manager," "Don Taylor, were among those hit." "The headlines rocked the world, but miraculously, all three survived." "Bob believed he had been protected by His Majesty." "He felt an even closer bond with Selassie when, soon after," "Selassie's son gave him his black jewelled ring." "It became Bob's most prized possession, which he felt gave him mystical power." "Meanwhile, one by one, those who had sought his death were tracked down and killed." "Throughout the Caribbean, Bob's people knew, verse by verse, the legend of Ham, one of Noah's three sons." "In Genesis, chapter nine, it is said," ""And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father," ""and told his two brethren without."" "It was believed that Ham's first brother, Japheth, started the white race in Europe, his second, Shem, fathered the peoples of Asia, and Ham brought his curse to all his descendants in Africa." "Ham got a curse." "Ham must come and cleanse himself of the curse." "So when him see a chance to get back his birthright, his land," "Mother Africa, Mother Ethiopia, Father Ethiopia, or anything, then he must have to decide whether him going to stay with the Babylon, or him going to go home." "Because Babylon must fall." "The Bible say, Israel was once a solid, unified nation, and then they started to intermarry and do all kind of things... worship false gods." "Also, Ham, which is one of the sons of Noah, which is supposed to be the black man, laughed at his father's nakedness when his father was asleep and drunk." "And God put a curse on Ham, which is the curse that we have been experiencing for all these years." "So it's up to us now to lift ourselves out of the gutter." "Who want to stay, stay." "Who want to come out, come out." "Man was born as man, man is just man." "So man evolved into whatever." "Man grew." "Man was one man." "Then God say, "How we gonna make you procreate?"" "So him make next man but a different kind of man, call it "woman", which is from man." "So the two of them must come together to carry on the life of man, so them procreate and more people come with different minds." "There was one mind, but the Devil want to try and do anything God can do, so him make more minds, so you have different minds." "Ham, Shem and Japheth are three different minds, three different people." "Ham get the curse." "Bob warned that no matter how hard the black man tried, he could never escape his fate." "Ham's punishment was to serve his brothers, and that was why the black man has been in service ever since." "Because it states in the Bible that the curse said," ""You shall serve Shem and Japheth, you shall be their servants."" "I mean, who is serving who?" ""Africa" is not an African word." "There is no such word in any African language." "So therefore..." "Ethiopia." "You don't see Africa in the Bible." "The whole of Africa was once called Ethiopia, but them come and call it Bechuanaland," "Mozambique, Angola - just Africa." "In 1 978, Bob courageously brought the people of Jamaica together with the "One Love" peace concert." "He joined hands with politicians and demanded peace." "The civil war between his people had to end." "Later, in the serenity of his beloved countryside," "Bob meditated and realised that all races could come together, if only they would turn to Jah." "Roots." "Ras Tafari is the roots, and God." "You see, him not just God for one people." "My God for all people." "My God for all people." "So, this is the struggle we have now." "Because God no partial, God black." "God black, and him no partial." "My God for the Chinaman and my God for the Indian, my God for the white man and my God for the black man." "The teachings of Vernon Carrington, or "Gadman" as he was known, increasingly influenced Rasta thinking." "Leader of the influential Twelve Tribes of Israel sect, he said the human race had been divided into 1 2 tribes, and that from these the chosen 1 44,000 would be saved on Judgment Day." "Tell you how him do it." "There's 1 2 tribes." "It's easy, it's 1 2 months." "1 2,000 from every month, you get 1 44,000 who deal with the one thing." "It's all over." "God power come upon earth and everything finish." "One time we never knew these things but we glad we know them today." "So you can see, everything come nearer and nearer." "It's always in the Bible, it's not something new." "Something in the Bible." "Gadman also told of how the white man had rewritten the Bible to fit his beliefs." "Such as replacing the Egyptian calendar with that of the Romans." "God no partial." "Because King James edit one of them, the King James version." "But the truth remains the same." "It might kind of change, like he wouldn't put the 1 2 months straight, he put January and put December next." "So, you couldn't really know." "You have April, May, June." "It's tricky." "We have to study to find out." "There goes a man who study it named Gadman from Jamaica." "Though Selassie was assassinated in a bloody coup in 1 97 4," "Rastas were convinced that he still lived on." "To them, Selassie was God, and no man could kill God." "Haile Selassie can never die." "Haile Selassie can't die, the man who created life can't die." "It's just true." "Christ say he come as the King of Kings." "No guy can overthrow him." "Bob also believed one day Selassie would rule the earth and shine the light of truth to all those who would turn to him." "This is the idea, you know." "Be not afraid, because Christ's government shall rule the earth." "Christ's government shall rule the earth." "That means any idea of repatriation, of going to Africa to restore our fathers' roots, because it's I and I who own it." "Because even in Ethiopia, a man lives so near to His Majesty that they never see him as who he is and broke him down to be as man." "By 1 980, cancer had spread from Bob's injured foot to the rest of his body." "He knew his time on earth was coming to a close." "So when he was invited to perform for independence Day in Zimbabwe, in the heart of Africa, he eagerly accepted." "Bob felt he had returned to his spiritual homeland." "Like all Rastas, he believed all Africans had once been united as Ethiopians." "It really means again that the people have to unite with His Majesty." "Forget Africa and name it Ethiopia." "It's as easy as that." "Because when it was named Ethiopia, man started to come in and capture." "When they captured, they must capture, capture, united their capture and call it Africa." "But one never captured, still named Ethiopia." "It's like a man have the 'erb but man take it away." "What you're left with is it named 'erb still?" "Them take this and call it something else." "The only way Africa can be Ethiopia again is that the Africans have to unite for the Ethiopia." "The ways of His Majesty, not the ways of the Russian, nor the American, nor no Socialism, nor no Communism, nor no Capitalism" " African." "African, you know." "Christ, that's where God come from." "It's God we are dealing with." "Sometimes he is broken down like a man, but God is really everything we ever discuss." "Because he is God, Ras Tafari." "As Bob neared his time of destiny with His Imperial Majesty, he prophesied a coming Armageddon between Capitalism and Communism." "What cause the problem is because it's two different powers." "None of them have no power, that belong to His Majesty, who is God." "What they must do now is acknowledge the truth and no say it's God's ways for running everywhere and deal with it in that way." "It can't be done in a different way because, even if a man fight with him outside, he won't fight the next time again." "So it better be the last Armageddon." "This is the Armageddon." "Because consciousness..." "Every man must fight for consciousness this trip." "It's not no little...not really boxing." "The people who invent Capitalism, them dead from the 1 6th century, but Capitalism is still around the place." "The guy who invented Communism, him dead from the 1 7th century, and them is the main things everyone are fighting about." "Now here comes Ras Tafari, who never need to bow to America, nor bow to Russia, to build up no nuclear things." "He must remain God." "Him is man's conscience." "Bob predicted that the white race, empowered by nuclear technology, would destroy themselves unless they turned to Jah." "You have Africa, America and Russia." "That's how the fight always goes." "The black man has the wisdom, knowledge and understanding." "The white man get the gift of technology." "But him never use it for right, him use it to build weapons, because him have ideas of God, which can't work." "But until the black people unite before the white man can see, where we really are dealing with, kind of like in a dream." "Just a dream." "Because the black people is not together." "Because the black man get the gift of wisdom, knowledge and overstanding and he ask forever living life too." "So this is where l go on" " God black." "Black people unite and God power come rule and all people rise." "So it go." "As easy as that." "All them things." "They say we want greater power than nuclear, a thing named earthquake, lightning and thunder." "So this nuclear thing is just keeping people away from God, believe that man can destroy the earth." "Man can only destroy himself." "So we're not afraid of nuclear, it's only to keep the people in fear." "They fear that man have such great power." "That cannot work." "Them only threaten innocent people's lives." "That cannot work." "The way I see it, I love life." "So I look out at the earth and I say, "l have to live forever."" "But the only way I can live forever is to know God and do what God says." "And no man can fight that." "When I look out and see His Majesty, in time, he will reveal that he is God." "It's a life, you know." "It's not like a natural thing, a man has to earn it." "You going to be a Rasta, you might die tomorrow." "A Rastaman deal with life forever, in this time." "By the late '70s, Bob's fame had reached all corners of the globe." "He became the voice for the oppressed." "His records sold millions." "His tours sold out." "From Asia to America, Africa to Europe, he sang of the message of Jah, bringing the Rastafarian faith to the attention of the world." "The religion which provided the focus for Bob's life and music incorporated Old Testament teachings," "Garvey's call for repatriation, and the belief in the divinity of the Emperor Haile Selassie." "But its fundamental message was of peace, love and understanding." "Bob's status as an international celebrity increasingly attracted those seeking to exploit it for their own gain." "His refusal to be controlled by others had almost cost him his life." "Bob never ceased speaking out against the oppressors, using his influence to highlight the exploitation of the black race." "He was instrumental in staging the historic "One Love" peace concert, organised to bring about unity among his people." "Despite his declining health, Bob worked and performed relentlessly, but eventually, the effects of his illness took their toll." "His decision to forego established medical treatments only hastened the devastating effects of the cancer." "On May 1 1th, 1 981 ," "Robert Nesta Marley finally lost his battle." "In his brief life, he had risen from the ghettos of Kingston to become one of the most influential performers ever." "Through his music and words, he almost single-handedly brought the sounds of reggae and the message of Ras Tafari to millions around the globe." "Despite his fame, he never lost touch with his own humanity and his vision of a better, more just world for all people regardless of their race, creed or colour." "In the end, he put his faith in the immortal words of the Emperor:" ""Until the colour of a man's skin is of no more significance" ""than the colour of his eyes," ""the rule of international morality will remain a fleeting illusion to be pursued" ""but never attained.""