+questions. answers

christopher john farley
writer. journalist
Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley
+ brook stephenson

Before Legend is a book that embodies what Nat Creole is about-culture, art and life. Specifically it is about Bob Marley and thankfully written by one of Jamaica’s native-born sons Christopher John Farley. Via a phone conversation, Farley discussed the book with literary editor Brook Stephenson.

Brook Stephenson: What motivated you to write this book?  

Christopher John Farley: His story has not been told. Stories have been written about him but his story has not been told. Facts were gotten wrong. Stories were left out. We don’t even understand the man yet so I wanted to present that by talking to the people that knew him best- his widow, his mother, his daughter, his band mate Bunny Wailer, his producers Lee Scratch Perry and Chris Blackwell. I thought if people got an intimate view of this guy- an insider’s view of what he was about- you could understand his music better and get to the roots of his genius. And you would be able to understand why his music is so important.

It’s an inspiring story. Here’s a guy who comes from the country, a small town named Nine Miles, and is raised with nothing. His father, the last thing this guy gives him is a penny before going away. He moves to the ghetto in Trenchtown, the ghetto of the third world, and creates a successful band there. But the music industry keeps fighting him and keeping him down and keeping him down so he has to move to America and work in an auto assembly plant just to make money to make ends meet, but then ends up going back to Jamaica and becoming a superstar. That’s the type of story that anyone can be inspired by. We’ve all had set backs with work and in life and thought we couldn’t make it but Bob Marley had those set backs too and was able to overcome them. I just think it’s a great story to get out there so people can know the journey this guy took. We all love the end result. We all love the Rastaman superstar but we don’t know the kid there in Nine Miles, the kid there in Trenchtown, the young man there in Wilmington, Delaware working in the auto assembly plant trying to make money, trying to make ends meet, trying to become the superstar we all know he became.

BS: You definitely captured that. One of the things I liked about the piece is that you thoroughly ingrained the reader into the culture when Marley was coming up. You can’t tell anyone’s story without telling the culture that shaped them. Can you explain a bit about how you even approached getting all this information? I know you were born in Kingston, Jamaica. Did some of this information come from talking to?

CJF: I was born in Kingston, Jamaica but I left when I was a month old. I don’t remember a whole lot from that beginning but I go back very often. I have relatives there. The way I went about reporting the book is the way I go about reporting any story. I’m a journalist. I’ve worked for USA Today, for Time Magazine and now I’m an Editor at the Wall Street Journal. I used the same skills that I have always used as a journalist to look into Bob Marley’s life and look into the culture that helped create him. I didn’t necessarily want to tell his story, I really wanted to tell the story of the Caribbean, of Jamaica. That’s another story people don’t know about. It’s a country that’s famous. It’s a country that a lot of people have visited as tourists. But to understand the heart of it you really have to dig deep into Jamaican history, all the way back to colonial times, the piracy times, to be able to tell the story of this culture [and] how it created this music, that is renowned worldwide, reggae.

BS: I must say I loved the piece about the Maroons because a lot of people don’t know who they are or what they did.

CJF: People don’t understand me [when I talk about] the roots of Bob Marley’s rebellion spirit. It goes way deep into Jamaican history when the maroon warriors fought the whole British Empire to a stand still. The maroon warriors were composed of runaway slaves [and] some slaves that freed themselves and took to the mountains of Jamaica, the hills, and fought an insurgent fight against the British Empire. The British Empire ended [the war] signing a peace treaty with them because their fighting techniques were so advanced, so accurate, so effective that the British could not stop them. That same blood runs in Bob Marley’s veins and that same spirit you can hear on his albums.

BS: Throughout the work you talk about his approach to music and what his purpose was as an artist. Could you expand on that a little bit?

CJF: The fascinating thing about him is that a lot of artists excel in one area or another but Bob Marley is unique in that in his work you can hear the sexual, the political and the spiritual all intertwine without contradiction. It just seems natural. There’s a natural mystic that flows through his music that no one else has. People like Stevie Wonder have been able to do that. Maybe you can say Prince has been able to do that, perhaps Bob Dylan but that’s just about it. You can listen to a Bob Marley song and want to dance to it. You can listen to a Bob Marley song and want to rebel, start a revolution to it. You can listen to a Bob Marley song and want to make babies to it. And there are very few artists that can do that. He can do that and also market his genius.

BS: For you, during all your research, what were some of the things you found out that surprised you?

CJF: One of the surprises I found out was that all the other books about Marley said his father was white, his father was a captain, but I found out the truth. Bob Marley’s father was not white. He was a man of color. He wasn’t British. He was Jamaican. He wasn’t a captain in the British army. He was discharged as a private. So it’s interesting to see that you can’t always go by what you read in encyclopedias and history books, you have to check it out for yourself sometimes. I think part of the reason why those other books about Marley have the story so wrong is the writers or people involved don’t have roots in the Caribbean. I have roots in the Caribbean. I think recently more people of the Caribbean have been raising their voice to tell the story of the area instead of having other people tell the story of the area themselves.

BS: No doubt. In terms of researching the Jamaica of Marley’s time, how did that compare to the Jamaica that you visited to do the research?

CJF: On some level a lot has changed. Bob Marley is now a hero. Rastas aren’t as ostracized as they once were. Jamaica is now self-governing. When Bob Marley was a kid they were ruled by the British Empire. On another level, hardly anything has changed, you go to the country side and the pace of life is the same as it was in Bob Marley’s time. Rastas still complain they don’t get a fair brake from the police. Bob Marley, although renowned worldwide, has not been declared a national hero of Jamaica like some other figures in Jamaican history. He’s still held at arms length by the Jamaican government which carries his image to sell tourism on the island but has not fully embraced him. So some things have changed but some things are just the same.

BS: Another interesting point you talked about was Rita Marley. A lot of people talked about her more as a thorn in his side than a muse or co-creative element in his space.

CJF: Don’t get me wrong, Rita can be difficult. Rita’s relationship with Bob Marley was wrought with a lot of arguments and infidelities on his part. He had a long running mistress in Cindy Breakspeare. He had a child with her who everyone knows as Damien Marley, who has became a superstar with his album Welcome to Jam Rock. But she [Rita] was also a creative person in her own right. She came out with her own albums after Bob Marley passed on. While she was working with Bob Marley she was his chief backup singer. She also co-wrote some songs with him. So Rita was a creative force and I think rock n roll widows are often demonized in music. You think of Yoko Ono and John Lennon and people think of Yoko Ono as a villain. You think of Courtney Love and Curt Cobain, a lot of people think Courtney Love is a villain. The same thing happened to Rita Marley. I think we are so pained by the loss of great figures in music history like Curt Cobain, like John Lennon, like Bob Marley that we want to have someone to blame. And Rita Marley got blamed by the public, even though she herself was true artist.

BS: What have you heard so far about the book and what have people been saying about it?

CJF: People are loving it. People are calling it the definitive work people should turn to if they want to know about Bob Marley’s life. That’s what I wanted to write. I wanted to write the kind of book that- if you want to know about Bob Marley this is the book to turn too.

BS: In terms of yourself and writing this, what are some of things you learned about yourself in the process?

CJF: I learned that it’s important to give your all to something like this. At one point I was working and trying to do the book, working and trying to do the book and it really wasn’t working out. I actually quit my job so I could focus in on getting Bob Marley’s story right because I felt readers deserved getting the whole story uncompromised and undiluted. So that’s what I did and I went back to work as an editor at the Wall Street Journal. I think it’s what Bob Marley would have demanded. If you are going to do something artistic, you got to give it your all. You can’t give it any half measures. You can’t put one arm behind your back. That’s what I gave to the book and I think the readers get a sense of that. For the readers it’s the whole story. I tried to get every detail I could. I talked to everyone who had dealt with Bob Marley and gave it my all because I thought the subject and the readers deserved it.

BS: Is there anything else you would like the public to know?

CJF: Bob Marley’s influence is still being felt all over. You think of his son Damian Marley going to the top of the charts with Welcome to Jam Rock and you have people like Sean Paul and Rhianna. They both visited Bob Marley’s museum to get inspiration for their latest works. You think of people like Matisyahu, the Hasidic reggae rapper who had a hit album and was influence by Bob Marley. You think of rock bands like The Strokes or hip-hop artists like Wyclef or Lauryn Hill, they all draw from Bob Marley. You think of someone like Biggie Smalls who is now dead and gone but whose effects are still being felt. He has roots from Jamaica. His mom is from Jamaica. Bob Marley’s influences are in hip-hop, he’s on the charts, he’s in pop music. He may have passed on twenty-five years ago but his music is still alive and well.

Christopher John Farley was born in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in Brockport, New York. He is a 1988 graduate of Harvard University and has worked as a reporter for USA Today and as a music critic, writer and editor for Time magazine. His previous books are Kingston by Starlight, My Favorite War, Aaliyah: More than a Woman and he is co-author of Martin Scorcese Presents the Blues. He is currently an editor at The Wall Street Journal .