![]() As Griffiths recalls, Rita’s voice was an ideal match for Bob’s. Eventually, Rita became an integral part of Bob’s music when the I Threes came together during an impromptu jam at a Jamaican club. It was Rita who also introduced her husband to Rastafarianism. “He was sending his letters through his friends, not by himself, through his friends, to say that he liked me and wanted to come over and talk,” Rita recalled later. ![]() Marley began coaching Rita’s singing group (the Soulettes) on singing and record-making, and even though he was a tough boss, he was drawn to Rita in other ways. It was through that group that she met Robert Nesta Marley, who had already cut a slew of singles with early versions of the Wailers. She studied as a nurse and sang in church, and before long was in a vocal group. After her parents separated, she was raised by an aunt. She was born Alferita Anderson in Cuba, and her parents moved to Kingston, Jamaica, when she was three months old. It is in working to overcome them that we grow strong.” Jo Mersa Marley, Grandson of Bob Marley and Son of Stephen, Dead at 31Īs Marley tells Rolling Stone by email, “We are given many burdens to carry. As women in this business, it hits home for us.” Before the MeToo movement, she did it, with people wishing she was dead. And when she didn’t do that, they didn’t like her very much. They wanted her to shut up and be a widow and let them all run it the way they thought it should be run. “In 1981, it wasn’t normal for a woman to say, ‘I’m going to take up my husband’s business,’” says Murray. Marley seems more than ever like a forerunner to artists like Beyoncé, who are in charge of their own operations notably, Marley appointed women to some of the divisions of Tuff Gong. ![]() Certain people in the Rastafarian faith were saying, ‘No, no, no, let da man handle it.’ What man? There’s no man. “With Daddy passing, she had to become very vocal. “In that culture, women are to be seen and not heard,” says Cedella of Rastas. She also had to grapple with a double whammy: trying to be a woman in power in both the male-dominated music business and the male-dominated Rastafarian world. She’s been a lightning rod for criticism, and, with her family, has faced legal challenges to the estate and money since Bob’s death. The celebrations are a reminder of the hurdles and challenges Marley faced. “When we started talking about her 75 th birthday, we started looking at Tuff Gong, at it being 40 years since the passing of Bob Marley and the reason that the museum and Tuff Gong Studios exists is because of the work she’s put in.” ![]() “One of the things that we’ve all kind of taken for granted is when someone is really good at doing something, you don’t realize how much they’re doing,” says Myshjua Allen Murray, a longtime family friend who serves as executive label manager for the music division, Tuff Gong International. The birthday has also made those around her take stock of her contributions. ![]() On Sunday, Marley turns 75, a milestone that’s become even more significant given her recent health issues: In 2016, she suffered a stroke - her seventh. “I never see myself as Bob Marley’s widow,” Rita said in 2000. These days, the family business - now run by Rita and Bob’s second-oldest child, Cedella - routinely earns at least $20 million a year and is valued at five times that amount. A few years after Bob died, an audit of his estate came up with a mere $250,000. Under her guidance, the Marley empire now includes a Bob Marley Museum and a recording studio (both in Kingston), a vinyl and CD pressing plant, record stores and a book division, and an onslaught of family-approved merch: cannabis and body-care products, headphones and other audio gear, coffee, and even a just-launched line of “functional mushrooms” (where they can be legally sold). But more importantly, and sometimes controversially, she took on oversight of his estate and business. ![]()
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