Ziggy Marley: The Man of Peace, Love, And Prosperity

Ziggy Marley is a man of stunning musical talent and accomplishment.  As I discovered in our interview at the Turner Hall Ballroom on October 4, Ziggy’s outlook on life informs the themes of peace and love that always appear in his music.

Marley has become one of the most inspiring Reggae musicians of the twenty first century. From his first songs performed with the Seven Do Bees which was created by him and his classmates, Ziggy appeared with his brother Stephen at some of Bob Marley’s biggest concerts. They even appeared at the tremendously successful One Love Peace Concert in Kingston in 1978, and at Reggae Sunsplash II in Montego Bay in 1979. In the same year, Ziggy, with his sisters Sharon and Cedella and his brother Stephan formed the Melody Makers.

The Melody Makers went on to produce some of the best Reggae albums of all time, earning three Grammy awards. Later, Marley branched off to start his solo career with the release of his first album “Dragonfly” in 2003. So far, Marley’s solo career has earned him a total of seven Grammy awards. Totaling seven Grammy awards overall.

Marley has been spreading the love of his new album titled  “Ziggy Marley” on his tour across North America, which began on May 28th. Marley’s goal when he sings music is he says, “to put forward ideas from what I have been inspired to write, and one of my continuous inspirations is love, so I keep singing about love. A lot of songs I write about have love in it. I think that that is one of the most important attributes that is missing in this world today, that if we can find that attribute within ourselves as human beings, this planet will be the greatest planet and it will be a be a beautiful place. And I think we all have it inside of us, but there is so much things, things that divide us, so much ideologies, so much indoctrination, people telling us this, people telling us that, that it’s very difficult for us to find that love, but it’s there, and we gonna find it.”

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, to the most famous reggae musician of all time (Bob Marley), Ziggy was the oldest of 12 children. His early life was not what most people would expect. He grew up in Trenchtown, one of Kingston’s poorest neighborhoods, and he lost his father at the age of twelve due to cancer.

He said, after his father passed,“I was my father figure.”

He said his biggest takeaway from his dad “Is to use your humanity to help other human beings, to help other people, for whatever it may be, it can be simple, or it can be big. To be humble and help people. You have a purpose in life that is more than just yourself. I think that is one of the biggest things.”

With seven Grammy awards you could say Marley is a very successful man. But he says he defines success as “humility, and knowing that I have a purpose here and I’m fulfilling my true purpose, this is my calling. I’ve been called to do this. I’ve been inspired to do this and I know I’m doing that which was given to me. Knowing that and being humble and respectful of others and having an open mind to learn from others, is very important for where I am today.”

Marley says he has been making music but  he said, “It’s not just about making music. My part is about giving a message [and] music is just a way to do it. I might write a book, I might do a TV show or something; there are many avenues, music is only one part. The real thing is that I’m inspired to give a message to people, and music was the original way that I found to express that. That is the only reason why I do music. If I wasn’t inspired to write a song that was of some meaning, then I wouldn’t be doing music. That is when I realized that music was going to be one of the tools to express myself because I’m inspired to write songs that have meaning to them.”

Marley said, “Proudest moment? I don’t know what proud is, because I don’t think I feel [that.] I don’t have that. I’m not sure what that even mean from my perspective. I’m happy, I don’t know what proud is, I’m not sure, I’m happy, when I did my album for children you know, that was cool, I really enjoy that.”

Marley says he doesn’t take pride in his work in the way we would usually think of being proud of something. He’s humble and says he gets joy out of his work. He says he feels like he is playing his part in today’s society by spreading happiness. And he is.

In a song Ziggy’s dad (Bob Marley) wrote, he said, “Today they say that we are free, only to be chained in poverty.”

But does Ziggy agree? “Well in some places like the internet and the web there is much more openness and things that help elevate himself if them searching for the right thing. I think we’ve come a long way, but there is still a way to go, but the most important thing I said is to find love in our hearts and spread that love.

“It doesn’t start big, it starts small like a seed, that turns into a big tree. This is how things start. I think that is the direction. There is still poverty, there is still negativity, but there is a lot of good out there. And I think we need to talk about good things to, not just the bad things. If you keep talking about the bad things, then we get bogged down. We have to remember there is still good out there. Let’s talk about some good things too, let’s talk about the good things that are happening in the world. Because if you just swim in negativity it really kill your spirits, and I think that is one of our problems, in the news, in the media, everything is so negative you know, there’s wars, the politicians are fighting each other. But, there is good news out there that they don’t show us, because they don’t want us to feel happy, they just want us to feel like, oh man, the world is terrible and bad. So it will stay that way, but it’s not [going to] stay that way, it’s not [going to]happen. I know that.”