40 years without Robert Nesta Marley, the Apostle of One Love

May 1981. I was pretty much young. Radio stations were playing Bob Marley non-stop. One Love. Redemption Song. No Woman No Cry. Rastaman Vibration. On and on and on. I overheard my older cousin, now of blessed memory, discussing with a neighbour that “Bob Marley is dead”. She looked sad. On my uncle’s table were several Marley cassettes. The one that fascinated me the most was the cover of ‘Uprising’, his last studio album. He had his arms raised and his head bent backwards, with his dreadlocks, as thick as the roots of an Iroko, touching the ground. I wondered: how…