“
My father was an entrepreneur. But
entrepreneurship with morality, and also
charity. It’s not about becoming the richest. It’s
about doing good business and helping people.
The money is never the driving force.
”—ZIGGY MARLEYthe development of new platforms in the digital
space,” continues Resnikoff. “We decided we could
approach the anniversary in a way that dealt with
multiple genres of music and a much broader de-
mographic. With the way the business has evolved
with audio and video streaming services, we’re
now able to become storytellers as opposed to just
distributors and marketers of music.”
That has also included the multipart Legend
documentary series, which began rolling out on
YouTube in February. Ziggy is heavily involved in
it and has reconnected with some of his father’s
old running mates, learning some new facts about
his dad along the way. “Speaking to some of his
friends, [I discovered] Bob loved comic books,” he
says with a laugh. “Simple stuff like that — with
the idea that we have about Bob Marley today,
you wouldn’t think that he loved comic books,
would you?”
All of that has also allowed UMe to think in
more global terms. “We’re now able to reach a
much younger audience around the world who
spends more time on YouTube than anyone ever
spent in a record store,” says Resnikoff. “We’ve
been selling records for years and years, but I view
artists like Bob Marley to be brands unto them-
selves. And it’s our job as a music company and a
media company to try to make sure that we extend
that brand to another generation of fans and leave
it larger than it was when we inherited it.”renchtown is a vibrant patchwork of
buildings, with people scattered
everywhere and music blasting at
chest-vibrating levels in the afternoon.
Bob Marley was raised in the neighbor-
hood from the age of 12 , and some of his older
kids still remember living here before their
father’s career took off internationally. Today,
Julian and Rohan Marley are here for the grand
opening of the Cornerstone Learning Center,
funded by Julian, Stephen and Damian’s Ghetto
Youths Foundation, which will provide kids in the
neighborhood with laptops, reading materials,
classes and academic support. A mural of Bob
reading to a group of children adorns the side
wall. At a short ceremony, a 7 - year-old girl
named Ariana sings “One Love” to the few dozen
people assembled in the courtyard.
“My father’s songs can all give you some kind
of inspiration for something in your life,” says
Julian. “And that’s giving. So if we can give
what we can give physically — whether that’s
food, knowledge, education, Cornerstone —
things like that mean a great deal.”
Each of Bob’s children has kept some connec-
tion to the wide-ranging charitable efforts that the
family is involved in, stemming first from the Bob
Marley Foundation and extending into the Ghetto
Youths Foundation and Ziggy Marley’s U.R.G.E.
Foundation, both of which are dedicated to school-ing and youth-focused projects in Jamaica, and the
Rita Marley Foundation, which aims to help the
poor and underserved communities there.
They’ve also tried to keep Bob’s message cur-
rent even beyond his songs, tailoring his social
media to showcase quotes from old interviews and
archival videos — putting new emphasis on Marley
as revolutionary, as political and social critic, as
more than simply the man who wrote “One Love”
and preached peace. “That was the main thing,
to explore more of him on that level. But also to
get his message out more, in a way,” says Ziggy.
“It’s a powerful tool; if you use it the right way, it
can do some good. And that’s a dilemma that I’ve
been thinking about, too — how do we use this not
just to sell stuff or whatever, but to really impact
people’s life and the world?”
Of course, the family knows Bob’s music is
always the bedrock, and they, like the rest of
the world, are leaning on it more than ever now,
plumbing it still for new meaning. Back in Feb-
ruary, well before the coronavirus irrevocably
changed life in this hemisphere, Rohan sat in the
dim recording studios at Tuff Gong, reflecting on
what his father left behind. “There’s a reason why
that music exists. There’s a reason why it’s current
today,” he said. “Especially now, in this time with
all the dissension, segregation and the conversation
happening. People haven’t changed. It’s the same
people. And people need the good vibration.”Left page: Julian (left) and Rohan Marley near the Cornerstone Learning Center in
Trenchtown, the neighborhood where their father grew up. The mural was commissioned
by brothers Julian, Stephen and Damian’s Ghetto Youths Foundation. Right page:
Attendees of Bob Marley’s 75 th Earthsong Celebration Redemption at the Bob Marley
Museum in Kingston on Feb. 6.MURAL^ BY^ CLAUDIO^ PICASSOANDKRAVEOF^CP^1/GHETTO^ YOUTHS^ FOUNDATIONAPRIL 25 , 2020 • WWW.BILLBOARD.COM 438fea_coverstory_marleys_lo [P]_27879288.indd 43 4/22/20 3:34 PM