Julian met dad, Bob Marley, for just two minutes
Julian Marley met his father, Bob Marley, only once, and then meeting was for a mere two minutes, the Grammy-award winning reggae artiste has revealed.
“I don’t have much memory of Bob, enuh, because I was like four/five when he passed. The only memories I have is going to concerts at Crystal Palace, which is a venue in London, and he was performing for the Uprising Tour. I just remember going to the show with my mother and some friends and making my way backstage somehow, and I remember going into the dressing room and I see di man stand up inna him red, gold and green jacket and mi jus shake him hand and mi neva see him again,” the 48-year-old Julian told
THE STAR.
“But that was the time [we met] – two minutes that’s what I could remember. But dat likkle handshake transcend some power,” the reggae superstar said.
The London-born singer is the son of Bob and Lucy Pounder. He was not yet six years old when his father died May 11, 1981. In addition to following his father’s footsteps into music, Julian is a devout Rastafarian. He sees his father as a revolutionary whose “great music he has blessed the world with”.
“The Gong is my father but he’s also my teacher. So like many people around the world, I see him as a man who forefront di ting, suh di whole a I and I can go out there,” Julian said.
But it is not Bob alone that he credits for opening the doors for others like him to be able to carry the musical torch across the globe. Ju-Ju, as he is called, salutes other trailblazers such as Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh, stating that they helped to “tek up di struggle and really put the music out deh”.
The Lemme Go singer, who identified his passion for music from the age of five, said he does not feel pressured to emulate the performance of his dad.
“You can only be as great as you are” because “the hardest pressure is to be yourself,” he reasoned.
But the Grammy award-winning singer said he inherited much of his traits from the One Love hitmaker. He points to qualities such as “the discipline, the drive and the fuel that fuels me to do what I’m doing” as being starting from Bob’s veins. “I’m like a student of my father – the teachings, it’s like a trademark,” Julian said.