`Lemme put it dis way, mon,” Ziggy Marley says in heavy Jamaican patois. ”My fahda was much much much much much bettah dan me.”
Everywhere Ziggy Marley goes, people want to know about his late father, Bob Marley, the charismatic artist who put reggae music on the world map. They want to know how Marley feels about carrying on the legacy, living up to the standard, toting the banner for his father.
It could make a lesser 22-year-old wilt. But not Marley. He`s cool. He`s not Bob, he`s Ziggy (real name: David).
He also has an ace in the hole: his hometown of Kingston, Jamaica, where he can come down from the family estate atop exclusive Jack`s Hill, hit the streets and hang with the locals in the Trench Town slums. They don`t treat him like a god, just like they didn`t treat his father like a god.
”Me and them down there keep in touch,” Marley said by phone recently.
”We live close by. Sometimes we have our friends coming up to our house. I never did feel any pressure in Jamaica. You just someone, not nobody big.”
Marley was in New York recently, doing a round of interviews to promote his third album on Virgin Records, ”Jahmekya.”
Like it or not, he finds himself at the forefront of a movement to bring reggae back to international prominence. With its languid, loping rhythms and unhurried pace, reggae is perfect tropical music, but it is sometimes anathema in frenzied urban environs.
Who better to resuscitate reggae than the legend`s son? And when Marley leaves his laid-back enclave to tour these days, it`s a family affair. His band, the Melody Makers, includes siblings Stephen, Cedella and Sharon Marley Prendergast. ”I never wanted it to be just Ziggy Marley,” he says. ”It`s all family. Everybody contribute. With all the different elements, everything is more interesting and the music is wider.”
”Jahmekya” bears testimony to that. Marley and the Melody Makers do not follow any blueprint from the reggae purist handbook, nor do they simply rework their father`s style.
Although the album brims with the spiritualism and social commentary that is a reggae staple, the group has taken liberties with rhythms and production. The disc incorporates funk beats, drum machines, rap, rock and sonic touches from the world of hip-hop. The songs come on tauter and edgier than the dreamy sway of much reggae. It could be this nudge toward urban-style intensity that enables reggae to compete with other pop styles.
Yet at its core, Marley`s new album comes from the reggae muse. ”Reggae music is our culture,” he says. ”This (has) roots in our past.” The music has something to say about life, about making things better for people, he says. ”It didn`t start with my father. And it won`t end with me.”
There was a time in the late `70s and early `80s when it looked as if reggae, with its exotic air, would become a major player on the commercial pop scene. At the forefront of the movement was Bob Marley, whose classic songs
(”Stir It Up,” ”I Shot the Sheriff,” ”Exodus”), soulful voice and animated stage presence made him an international star. Then he died of brain cancer in May 1981, and the reggae torch dimmed. Although plenty of talent remained on the scene, from Dennis Brown to Peter Tosh, no artist came forward to fill Marley`s role as reggae ambassador.
A decade later, Ziggy Marley is not surprised by reggae`s setback.
”Reggae music is not an easy music to like when it comes to the power in society,” he says. ” `Cause it talks about changing society. You won`t find it readily accepted. We`re not saying what the system says, not doing what it wants us to do. We want to change people and make them aware of things. Society and the system and politicians don`t want people to be aware of things. They want people to believe what they have to show `em.”
Marley and the Melody Makers have not become the ultimate saviors of reggae as many of the music`s aficionados had hoped, but their two strong-selling, Grammy-winning albums, ”Conscious Party” (1987) and ”One Bright Day” (1989), have contributed to the genre`s resurgence.
There is ample reason to expect ”Jahmekya” to continue the momentum. Reggae bands have cropped up around the world, from England to the U.S. to Africa. And Marley gives them his blessing. ”It`s people music,” he says.
”I wouldn`t be prejudiced against anybody who plays it.”
