there are plans to reopen it in the summer (for
now, it’s open for tours). Instead of headlining the
BeachLife Festival in May, several Marley family
members performed on the virtual Telethon Ja-
maica on Easter Sunday (April 12 ) to raise money
for equipment and tests to help fight COVID- 19 in
Jamaica. The family also made its own donation
through the Bob Marley Foundation and helped
deliver thousands of protective masks through its
partnership with the Alacran Foundation. Plus, on
April 20 , Marley-branded face masks went on sale
at the BobMarley.com digital store for $ 15 , with all
proceeds going to MusiCares.
“The situation in the world kind of put a stop
to some of the stuff we were doing in terms of
live events,” says Ziggy Marley, 51 , hinting at the
possibility of livestreamed tribute shows or other
potential replacement events. Ultimately, though,
that depends on how fast things get back to normal.
“We’re trying to figure that out now.”t’s late morning at the beginning of February,
and Rohan Marley is early. Pulling up to Tuff
Gong recording studios, set on an industrial
stretch of Marcus Garvey Drive in west
Kingston, Jamaica, in a white Range Rover,
he’s here to show off the compound’s newly
refurbished vinyl pressing plant. Housed in one
of the gated property’s handful of buildings, the
plant fell out of use over the years as vinyl’s
prevalence dwindled. The relentless Jamaican
sun means the temperature is already into the
mid- 80 s, but Rohan, spliff in hand, doesn’t seem
fazed. “This,” he says, laughing as he walks
through the big warehouse doors, “is where the
magic begins.”
For many fans, Tuff Gong is the embodiment of
Bob Marley’s spirit, a physical representation of his
ambition to give his fellow Jamaican artists a place
to record, mix, master, press and sell records, all
independently. “Tuff Gong” was Bob’s nickname,
earned as a teen scrapping his way through Trench-
town, then became the name of his record label (he
retained the rights to his music in the Caribbean,
with Island controlling it internationally) and the
umbrella under which all of his enterprises still fall,
nearly 40 years after his death.
“The importance of a pressing plant and a stu-
dio was having a full, sustainable movement, full
circle,” says Rohan, 47. “He wanted his indepen-
dence and to be self-sufficient.”
The original pressing machines from the 1970 s
are here, though Marcus Garvey Drive is not
where Bob’s record operation first stood; that
was at 56 Hope Road, the family’s old home in
Kingston that now houses the Bob Marley Mu-
seum. The family moved the recording studio and
pressing plant to Marcus Garvey Drive in 1983
— two years after Bob’s death from cancer at age
36 — and converted the former Federal Studios
into the new Tuff Gong, with the largest record-
ing studio in the Caribbean.
Still, there are touches of Bob everywhere.
Murals adorn the warehouse walls outside, whileKy-Mani Marley photographed
Feb. 6 at the Bob Marley
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