One Love Bob Marley, The Mystic, and the Market

Abstract

This chapter explores how anti-systemic figures of the Cold War era were reimagined in the post-Cold War world. It begins by considering the exponential growth of Bob Marley's popularity after his death, and the amplification of discrete elements of his message. Specifically, it concentrates on the alternative meanings listeners have projected onto Marley since the 1980s, notably the view of him as a spiritual lodestar. From the mid-1980s Marley's record label and many fans began to champion him as a suprareligious figure and a symbol for politically neutral concepts like "One Love". This reinterpretation of Marley flattened his message but substantially widened his appeal. In the 1990s a new generation of Bob Marley fans looked to him as a voice of imprecise yearnings for spiritual fulfillment and social change. But Marley's skyrocketing popularity also contributed to increasingly vapid forms of commodification, which reduced Marley's message to cultural style. By the early 2000s, Marley's image appeared on a dizzying array of products, from underwear to soft drinks. Consequently, an intense debate ensued over the meaning of Marley's music and legacy, one in which Marley's heirs, seeking to redeem his name as an ethical brand, have played an increasingly important part.