Bob Marley

Robert Nesta Marley was born in 1945 in Nine Mile, a village in Jamaica's Saint Ann Parish, to a young Jamaican mother and an older English father. Moving to the Trenchtown neighbourhood of Kingston as a boy, he grew up surrounded by the ska and rocksteady sounds of the island. In 1963 he formed the Wailers with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, and the group slowly built a devoted Jamaican following.

International recognition arrived with the albums Catch a Fire and Burnin' in 1973, and by the release of Exodus in 1977 Marley had become the first global superstar to emerge from the developing world. His music wove together Rastafarian spirituality, social protest, and messages of unity, and his 1978 One Love Peace Concert in Kingston, where he joined the hands of Jamaica's rival political leaders on stage, became an enduring image of reconciliation.

Marley was diagnosed with melanoma in 1977 and died in Miami in May 1981, aged 36; Jamaica honoured him with a state funeral. The posthumous compilation Legend became the best-selling reggae album in history, and his songs of dignity and hope are sung on every continent. Few musicians have ever meant so much to so many, and his call for unity remains his lasting gift to the world.