Bob Marley

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Robert Nesta Marley was born on February 6, 1945 in the parish of St. Ann's in Nine Miles, Jamaica to Norval Sinclair Marley and Cedella ‘Ciddy’ Malcom. Norval was a British Marine officer and Ciddy was a native Jamaican. Soon after his birth, Bob’s father left and had little contact with him although he did financially support his son. When Bob was five, his father took him to Kingston, Jamaica. It wasn’t until a year later that Bob saw his mother again. Soon after, he moved with his mother to Trenchtown, a section of Kingston notorious for it’s rough ghettoes. In 1961, at the age of sixteen, Bob released his first song, Judge Not, which did not do well. This did not discourage Bob. He continued to pursue a career in music and in 1965, he formed a group called ‘The Wailers’ with Bunny Livingstone (later known as Bunny Wailer) and Peter McIntosh (later known as simply Peter Tosh.) Bob acted as front man for the group and wrote most of the group’s material. The trio released ‘Simmer Down,’ ‘Rule Them Rudie’ and ‘It Hurts To Be Alone,’ all of which were hits in Jamaica.

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On Feb. 10, 1966, Bob married Alpharita Anderson whom he had been dating for almost a year. Alpharita, better known as Rita, was a nurse as well as a singer herself. She later would form the I-Three, which became the back up group for the Wailers. The day after their wedding, Bob left to visit his mother in America for a few months. Together Bob and Rita had their children Sharon, Ziggy, Cedella, Steven and Damian who are all musically talented, and make up the Melody Makers.

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One day when Rohan's mother, Janet Hunt, realized that her son never came home with any homework and only seemed to talk about soccer, she decided to investigate his truancy for herself. "She said, 'OK, I'm taking you to school this morning,' and I said, 'All right, let's go.' She walked me to school and everybody was startled. They hadn't seen me the whole semester. Rohan was immediately expelled from school and it was decided that he would go to Miami to live with his grandmother, he recalled with a smile. Fortunately, things couldn't have gone better for the would-be troublemaker. In Miami, Rohan finally learned the discipline he needed to stay focused on his education, eventually pursuing a business degree at the University of Miami. And all that restlessness? He found a great outlet for that, too, playing linebacker in college for the highly ranked Miami Hurricanes and taking his skills to the next level as a professional in the Canadian Football League.