On the night of December 3, 1976, seven armed men entered the most famous reggae house in the world: Bob Marley.
On the night of December 3, 1976, seven armed men entered the most famous reggae house in the world: Bob Marley, who would have turned 80 in 2025.
In the courtyard of the house, the wife of the singer and singer -songwriter, Rita Marley and, without a word, shot them in the head.
Three of them surrounded the house and the others entered the kitchen where Marley spoke with the members of his band, the Wailers, while preparing a fruit salad.
According to the British journalist Vivien Goldman, who at the time was in Jamaica, what happened was a slow camera shooting scene.
The men shot against the musicians. The blood boiled on the walls and formed puddles on the floor. Among the screams, one of the invaders pointed out against Marley’s chest and pressed the trigger.
In total they shot more than 80 shots. But in an incredible result, nobody died that night, even if the tensions recruited in the country.
Jamaica, 1976
Even 40 years later, the episode is still considered dark and wrapped in mystery.
At the time, Jamaica was a country in front of its current stereotype. The island was far from being a quiet Caribbean paradise.
In 1976, the boss were traffickers and armed men; The social tensions were at their maximum point and under the influence of the Cold War and have fragile political structures less than two decades after its independence from the United Kingdom.
On the map, Jamaica is closer to Cuba that Cuba is close to Miami. And in the ideological cartography of the 70s, Havana and Kingston were close to Moscow.
Prime Minister Michael Manley of the National People’s Party (PNP), a socialist and close to Fidel Castro, was trying to re -election facing Edward Seagga of the Jamaican Labor Party (JLP). Some have connected to Seaga to the American secret agency, Cia.
In the middle of these extremes there was a star of the world reggae who tried to maintain its neutrality, but whose music mobilized hundreds of thousands of voters.
“The politicians are the devil,” Marley said at the time, according to Mikal Gilmore, veteran journalist of the Rolling Stone magazine.
The two candidates for a premier wanted Marley to campaign for them. And if he didn’t do it, it would be better to keep silent.
Threat
“It was the most violent moment that the country lived and Marley was practically the only force that could unite both groups,” explained the Jamaican writer Marlon James.
In 1976, the world fame transformed the 31 -year -old singer into an almost spiritual leader of most of the millions of residents of the island.
The reggae had become a popular expression of a poor country where “people were increasingly desperate and violent”, according to the journalist Vivien Goldman. “The island seemed full of weapons.”
Free show
The Manley government convinced Marley to offer a free show in the capital, Kingston, to calm the spirits of the population who was already tired of living in a state of emergency.
The event was scheduled for December 5 and was called Smile the Jamaica (“Smile Jamaica”.
But the prime minister also made another decision that seemed only to confirm the singer’s mistrust against politicians: he said the elections of December 15th.
And so the association between Bob Marley and the Michael Manley’s re -election campaign was inevitable.
The singer even warned that, due to this maneuver, the death threats against him increased. Even so, Marley has decided to participate in the show.
Two police officers were assigned to take care of their home, which was also where the Wailers tried.
But on the night of December 3, two days before Smile Jamaica, for some reason that until now no one could explain, the seven armed men entered Marley’s house without anyone stopping them.
The two police officers were not simply in their places.
‘Seven murders’
In just five minutes, the men entered Marley’s house, shot and flee.
They have never been captured and never learned who they were or where they were.
“It is a mystery like these men, who perhaps committed the most reckless and painful crime in the history of Jamaica, has simply disappeared,” said the writer Marlon James on the website of the Malpaso publisher, who translated the book into Spanish that he wrote, The short story of seven killings (in free translation, “a short story of seven murders”).
In the book, James uses Marley as the starting point to immerse himself in the life of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Kingston, race and class conflicts, gang wars and government conspiracy.
The result are almost 700 pages in which the 76 characters are mixed. With them, Marlon James won the Man Booker award in 2015, perhaps the most famous literary prize in English.
According to the American newspaper, the New York Times, every explosive social plot of those years revolved around Bob Marley, who had become a saint for the oppressed, a revolutionary for conservatives and a threat to politicians.
“Saved” from Selassie
In addition to not knowing how the seven men have managed to disappear, it is not yet known how Marley survived a blow to the chest.
The singer has always said he was saved by the spirit of Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia killed the previous year.
For Rastafáris like Marley, Selassie was the reincarnation of God. The use of “rasta” hair consumption and marijuana is also part of this spiritual movement born in Jamaica.
“If Marley, at that moment, was stimulating instead of expiring, the bullet would have crossed her heart,” said Marlon James.
The bullet passed Marley’s chest and ended up on the left arm. There was no time for a second shot.
In the middle of the confusion, Don Taylor, the singer of the singer, launched himself on him, making five shots in the abdomen. But survived.
The most surprising case, however, was Rita Marley, Bob’s wife. The bullet fired his head was blocked between the scalp and the skull without further damage.
Two days after the attack, still with medications on the chest and arm, Marley performed for more than an hour against over 80,000 people at the concert Smile the Jamaica.
Rita accompanied him, still using the hospital shirt.
‘Exodus’
A few days after the show, Marley traveled.
He went to the Bahamas, the United States and then to London. In a sense, Jamaica has never returned to her home as before.
But the murder attempt inspired what the time of the American magazine considers the best musical album of the 20th century, Exodus.
The first song, Natural mysticalHe says:
This can be the first trumpet, it can also be the last:
Many others will have to suffer
Many others will have to die.
In the last minute of a video on YouTube, dark and poor images, you can see Bob Marley at the end of the presentation Smile the Jamaica.
The singer delivers the microphone to a bandmate and approaches the public. A policeman makes safety.
In front of the crowd, the legend of the reggae slowly blurted out his shirt and shows the bullet wound that crossed his chest reaching his left arm.
Marley continued with this bullet hosted on the body and music until the day of his death in 1981, only 36 years old.
This report was originally published on September 6, 2016.
Source: Terra
Earl Johnson is a music writer at Gossipify, known for his in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the industry. A graduate of USC with a degree in Music, he brings years of experience and passion to his writing. He covers the latest releases and trends, always on the lookout for the next big thing in music.
