Jamaican Robert Nesta Marley (1945-1981) was one of the most gifted and appealing musicians of the 1970s. This outstanding singer and songwriter did much to popularise and develop reggae, taking it in new directions for a global audience. Young people everywhere responded to his anti-establishment and rebellious music. He was a popular music star at a time when such figures still meant something substantial to masses of people.

Bob Marley’s continued popularity is reflected in the size of the audiences flocking to see Reinaldo Marcus Green’s biopic Bob Marley: One Love, despite almost universal criticism of its airbrushed superficiality.

At the end of Green’s film, we are told that Marley’s songs have become beacons for the oppressed everywhere. This deserves attention, but the necessary reflection on the contradictions in Marley’s life and work this involves is not forthcoming.

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