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Bob Marley: Rasta Vigilante · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis.
0:17
Speaker 2: The truth about Bob Marley is pretty nuts.
0:20
Speaker 3: The peace in Love, Rastafari and reggae superstar was also
0:24
Speaker 3: a violent, revenge fueled kid from the trench Town ghetto
0:27
Speaker 3: who would not be denied justice or his due. He
0:31
Speaker 3: once hung his manager out of a hotel window to
0:34
Speaker 3: renegotiate a contract. He and his friends were known to
0:37
Speaker 3: strong arm DJs for radio play, and in a rage,
0:40
Speaker 3: he jammed a pistol into the side of a colleague's
0:43
Speaker 3: head until he was given what he wanted. If you
0:46
Speaker 3: were the big tree and in his way, he was
0:49
Speaker 3: the small axe sharpened to cut you down. And he
0:53
Speaker 3: sought and possibly attained justice by having a trench Town
0:57
Speaker 3: kangaroo court string up his would be assassins from palm trees.
1:02
Speaker 3: Bob Marley believed in justice, but there was a thin
1:05
Speaker 3: line between justice and vengeance. You can hear both themes
1:09
Speaker 3: throughout his music, and Bob Marley made great music, some
1:13
Speaker 3: of the greatest music ever made. In fact, that music
1:16
Speaker 3: at the top of the show that wasn't great music,
1:19
Speaker 3: that was a loop from my mellotron called rumba Guitar
1:22
Speaker 3: Low MK two, and I played you that loop because
1:27
Speaker 3: I can't afford the rights to Night.
1:28
Speaker 2: Fever by the Beg's.
1:31
Speaker 3: And why would I play you that specific slice of
1:33
Speaker 3: Harry Medallion Cheese?
1:34
Speaker 2: Could I afford it?
1:36
Speaker 3: Because that was the number one song in America on
1:39
Speaker 3: April twenty second, nineteen seventy eight. And that was the
1:43
Speaker 3: day that Bob Marley, international reggae superstar, the Tough Gong
1:48
Speaker 3: and the Rastafari man of peace and love may or
1:51
Speaker 3: may not have brought violent justice down upon his enemies
1:55
Speaker 3: on this episode a kangaroo court rumba guitars, Harry Dion Cheese,
2:01
Speaker 3: Bob Marley and Rastafarian vengeance.
2:04
Speaker 2: I'm Jake Brennan and this is disgrace sand.
2:18
Speaker 3: Before the tiny Ford capri had even stopped skidding, the
2:22
Speaker 3: four young men from Trench Town jumped out onto the
2:25
Speaker 3: unpaved parking lot of the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. One of
2:29
Speaker 3: them was Bob Marley, and he was pissed. Pissed off
2:33
Speaker 3: that his bandmate Bunny Livingston didn't want to tour, pissed
2:37
Speaker 3: off that money was tight. Still in his twenties, he
2:40
Speaker 3: was supporting seven children by four different women. Ja will provide,
2:44
Speaker 3: but within reason and most important in this moment, Bob
2:48
Speaker 3: was pissed off at his latest single, despite being the
2:51
Speaker 3: number one selling song in all of Jamaica, couldn't get
2:55
Speaker 3: spun on the radio. Trench down Hoods got a bad rap.
2:59
Speaker 2: But the real.
3:00
Speaker 3: Gangsters or the suits in the music industry pulling strings
3:03
Speaker 3: and playing kingmaker Bob's song Small Axe killed, and so
3:09
Speaker 3: did Bob's right hand man, the man rushing the radio
3:12
Speaker 3: station with him at the moment, who went by the
3:14
Speaker 3: unambiguous nickname Take Life. He was a brutal presence back
3:18
Speaker 3: in the ghetto. A second killer hurried along Bob's other side,
3:22
Speaker 3: and the last man, the Wheelman, a professional footballer named
3:26
Speaker 3: Alan Skill Cole, who, when he unfolded his six foot
3:30
Speaker 3: five inch body out of the front door of the
3:32
Speaker 3: fastback coop, made it look more like a clown car.
3:35
Speaker 3: But there would be no clowning around on this visit
3:38
Speaker 3: to the radio station. These guys meant business. Skill carried
3:42
Speaker 3: with him a cricket bat, Take Life carried a ratchet knife,
3:46
Speaker 3: and Bob Bob Marley carried with him a lifetime of
3:49
Speaker 3: angst and desperation that only growing up an abject poverty
3:53
Speaker 3: can add to your load. The foursome burst into the studio,
3:57
Speaker 3: uninvited and intimidating. Its all hell, you go and play
4:01
Speaker 3: the new Whaler's record on JBC, Bob demanded of the
4:04
Speaker 3: confused British DJ behind the console. Take life, leaned back
4:09
Speaker 3: against the wall, played it cool, cleaned his fingernails with
4:12
Speaker 3: his knife, and sucked on his teeth, while the other short,
4:16
Speaker 3: well dressed thug Frowser loosened up his neck muscles to
4:20
Speaker 3: let the DJ know in no uncertain terms that he
4:22
Speaker 3: was ready for combat. Skill just smacked his open palm
4:26
Speaker 3: with the cricket bat slowly and stared with menace, And
4:32
Speaker 3: then he said, listen here. If we don't hear small
4:35
Speaker 3: acts on JBC before an hour pass, we smash your windscreen.
4:39
Speaker 3: Then if another hour pass and we don't hear small acts,
4:43
Speaker 3: we smash your face. Skill had recently begun helping the
4:48
Speaker 3: Whalers out with what he called quote unquote management. His
4:52
Speaker 3: Jamaican patois was a little easier for the cowering DJ
4:55
Speaker 3: to understand than the words of Marley, who now fixed
4:58
Speaker 3: the DJ with an intense game a look that those
5:01
Speaker 3: who knew him called Screwface. The DJ had heard tale
5:06
Speaker 3: of Marley and his muscle visiting the island's only other
5:09
Speaker 3: major station, Radio Jamaica, earlier in the week. The damage
5:13
Speaker 3: amounted to one broken nose, four slash tires, and a
5:16
Speaker 3: sudden increase in airplay for Bob Marley. The only thing
5:20
Speaker 3: that DJ was able to verify was that he had
5:23
Speaker 3: indeed heard Small Acts on Radio Jamaica on his drive
5:27
Speaker 3: to work that morning, and now here was Bob Screwface Marley,
5:31
Speaker 3: the tough Gong himself, armed with a couple of thugs
5:34
Speaker 3: and the country's best footballer staring.
5:36
Speaker 2: Him in the face. He had only one choice.
5:40
Speaker 3: And so Bob Marley's top selling Jamaican smash Small Acts,
5:45
Speaker 3: cut through the island's airwaves and all around his hometown
5:48
Speaker 3: people were finally able to hear Bob Marley on their radios.
5:52
Speaker 3: His message was revolution, his message was love, His message
5:57
Speaker 3: was peace, and so what if the message needed a
6:00
Speaker 3: little strong arm to get across. Jamaican radio in the
6:04
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies was difficult for rostas to crack. There were
6:08
Speaker 3: only two radio stations on the island. One played disco
6:12
Speaker 3: and the other was busy trying to be the BBC,
6:15
Speaker 3: and they both ignored the musical revolution growing like weeds
6:18
Speaker 3: right outside their studio doors. Reggae was alive throughout the
6:24
Speaker 3: streets of Jamaica, a true music of the people.
6:27
Speaker 2: Or in Jamaica, just like in America, it was pay
6:30
Speaker 2: to play.
6:31
Speaker 3: If you wanted a record plate on the radio, well,
6:33
Speaker 3: you better show the program manager some love and come
6:36
Speaker 3: calling with cash or coke, or women or all three.
6:39
Speaker 2: But bribes weren't enough.
6:41
Speaker 3: The proletariat power of reggae, even in those early days,
6:44
Speaker 3: spooped radio programmers, and despite whatever enticements were brought their way,
6:49
Speaker 3: DJs were still reluctant.
6:51
Speaker 2: To accept them from the dreadlocked rostas.
6:54
Speaker 3: But take life, Frowser and Skill brought a different set
6:58
Speaker 3: of skills to the proverbial negotiating and things for the
7:01
Speaker 3: whalers and Bob Marley slowly started to change. That the
7:08
Speaker 3: radio station was ignoring the needs of the masses was
7:11
Speaker 3: symptomatic of a larger political problem in Jamaica. The island
7:14
Speaker 3: achieved independence about a decade before, in nineteen sixty two,
7:18
Speaker 3: but Jamaica was still unapologetically neo colonial run by a
7:23
Speaker 3: lazy white middle class minority who had their own interests
7:26
Speaker 3: at heart and had no interest in losing their power
7:29
Speaker 3: to the masses and the shantytowns. The gulf between the
7:32
Speaker 3: rich and the poor seemed to widen daily. Even under
7:36
Speaker 3: the socialist rule of Prime Minister Michael Manley and his
7:39
Speaker 3: People's National Party, life in Jamaica was rough, so its
7:44
Speaker 3: citizens looked to their government for change, and everyone, it seemed,
7:48
Speaker 3: took an interest in politics, including it was rumored the
7:52
Speaker 3: American government, who had a vested interest in ousting the
7:55
Speaker 3: sitting Prime Minister in favor of their own puppet. So
8:00
Speaker 3: sterious shipments of guns started floating up on Jamaican shor
8:03
Speaker 3: as they were handed out in the ghetto, CIA agents
8:06
Speaker 3: began training.
8:07
Speaker 2: Rude boys on how to use their new M sixteen's.
8:10
Speaker 3: Rumors started circulating the Prime Minister Michael Manley was a
8:14
Speaker 3: Communist puppet for Cubas Fidel Castro, and as such, distrust
8:18
Speaker 3: was sown and the tiny country was further destabilized. Meanwhile,
8:23
Speaker 3: as Bob Marley's star rows and as his name began
8:26
Speaker 3: to ring out throughout the island, he formed an alliance
8:29
Speaker 3: with Michael Manley, the sitting Prime Minister, and his People's
8:32
Speaker 3: National Party also known as the PNP in the early seventies.
8:37
Speaker 3: The Whalers headlined a nineteen seventy one tour called the
8:41
Speaker 3: PNP Musical Bandwagon, and whenever asked in interviews which of
8:45
Speaker 3: the two parties he preferred, Bob would always stump for
8:48
Speaker 3: the People's National Party and nearly all these interviews, and
8:52
Speaker 3: Bob Marley did a lot of interviews. He would also
8:54
Speaker 3: extol the virtues of Ganja, encourage all blacks to repatriate
8:58
Speaker 3: to Africa, and pre that Mighty God was a living
9:01
Speaker 3: man Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassii aka jah Rastafarai I and
9:08
Speaker 3: I will survive. Bob was far out unconventional. Even so,
9:13
Speaker 3: with his new clout, his endorsement of Michael Manley carried weight.
9:17
Speaker 3: Bob was fast becoming an international superstar, and with or
9:21
Speaker 3: without Jamaican radio, Jamaicans were listening to him an app
9:25
Speaker 3: to follow his lead politically as well as his message
9:29
Speaker 3: of revolution and justice. For years, Marley had been yearning
9:33
Speaker 3: to expand his message beyond the island. He struck out
9:36
Speaker 3: on his own and the Whalers became Bob Marley and
9:39
Speaker 3: the Whalers. After founding members Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston quit.
9:44
Speaker 3: It was also time for Marley to get a new manager.
9:46
Speaker 3: Although Skill Cole had been helpful or at least forceful,
9:50
Speaker 3: in Marley's development, and he was a hell of a
9:52
Speaker 3: lot of fun to kick the ball around with. Skill
9:54
Speaker 3: was returning to the world of professional soccer. So in
9:58
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy three, when The Whaler shared a bill with
10:01
Speaker 3: Marvin Gay, Bob Marley met Don Taylor, the concerts organizer,
10:05
Speaker 3: and a business relationship was struck. Taylor had strong US
10:10
Speaker 3: music industry connections and a shrewd business acumen. This, coupled
10:14
Speaker 3: with Marley's natural and immense appeal, helped Bob make influential
10:18
Speaker 3: friends from other parts of the world. By the mid seventies,
10:22
Speaker 3: most major rock acts had begun integrating reggae into their sound,
10:26
Speaker 3: and it was entirely because of Bob Marley, the Rolling Stones,
10:30
Speaker 3: Paul McCartney and Paul Simon. Some did it more convincingly
10:33
Speaker 3: than others. Eric Clapton covered I Shot the Sheriff and
10:37
Speaker 3: Clapton was God, and so to white kids, that meant
10:40
Speaker 3: God was covering Bob Marley, a ghetto kid from a
10:43
Speaker 3: tiny island, a large portion of the world had barely
10:45
Speaker 3: heard of. Stevie Wonder even wrote a song about Bob Marley,
10:50
Speaker 3: and after the Whalers shared a bill with Stevie, had
10:52
Speaker 3: a benefit concert in nineteen seventy five, Bob decided he
10:55
Speaker 3: wanted to give something back to the Jamaican people respect
10:58
Speaker 3: his roots free concert. The concert was to be an
11:03
Speaker 3: a political event called the Smile Jamaica Concert, but nothing
11:07
Speaker 3: in Jamaica in nineteen seventy six was a political. Bob's
11:11
Speaker 3: intention was to bring people together to ease social tensions
11:14
Speaker 3: on the eve of a divisive election. Prime Minister Michael
11:18
Speaker 3: Manley wanted the concert to be held on the Prime
11:20
Speaker 3: Minister's lawn. Bob felt like he was being played by
11:23
Speaker 3: Manley's political machine, being boxed into a position where he
11:27
Speaker 3: would be seen as being too far out on his
11:29
Speaker 3: front foot as a political shill. So Bob declined fuck
11:33
Speaker 3: that Bob Marley wasn't going to go calling on the
11:36
Speaker 3: Prime Minister. The Prime Minister could come calling on Bob Marley.
11:40
Speaker 3: The concert, it was decided, would be held at the
11:43
Speaker 3: National Heroes Park, but then shortly after the date of
11:46
Speaker 3: the concert was announced, Manley's incumbent political party pulled a
11:50
Speaker 3: fast one and moved the election up two weeks, effectively
11:54
Speaker 3: making the event seem like a rally for Michael Manley himself,
11:57
Speaker 3: when in effect that was never to be the case.
12:00
Speaker 3: It did, indeed now look like Bob was shilling for
12:03
Speaker 3: Manley to win the election. Bob Marley was pissed, but
12:07
Speaker 3: perhaps more important, the heavily armed CIA backed Conservative Labor
12:11
Speaker 3: Party back in the Ghetto was even more pissed. This
12:15
Speaker 3: election was war. Every battle mattered, and if Bob Marley,
12:18
Speaker 3: the country's biggest star, was openly supporting their sworn enemy,
12:23
Speaker 3: Prime Minister Manly, then this was not to be tolerated.
12:26
Speaker 3: Marley fully backing Manly, even by accident or by manipulation,
12:31
Speaker 3: was a bridge too far, a bridge worth blowing up,
12:35
Speaker 3: a bridge worth dying on. If Bob Marley was going
12:39
Speaker 3: to help win the reelection for the Prime Minister, then
12:41
Speaker 3: Bob Marley had to be stopped by any means necessary.
13:01
Speaker 3: Bob marleyan made it. He knew this because he'd moved
13:04
Speaker 3: from the slums of Trenchtown, Jamaica to a Kingston estate,
13:08
Speaker 3: and perhaps out of guilt, or perhaps just because he
13:11
Speaker 3: was a truly righteous dude. Bob Marley took Trench down
13:14
Speaker 3: to Kingston with him. Bob was more than happy to
13:17
Speaker 3: allow all sorts of friends and hangers on to get
13:20
Speaker 3: together and feel all right at his swanky new digs.
13:22
Speaker 3: And if in doing so he brought the property values
13:25
Speaker 3: of his white devil neighbors down, then so be it.
13:29
Speaker 3: His front yard was overrun by gangsters, gunmen, and half
13:33
Speaker 3: naked children, many of them his own, from an ever
13:36
Speaker 3: expanding stable of women who weren't his wife. Members of
13:40
Speaker 3: the Twelve Tribes of Israel, an intense sect of Rastafarianism,
13:44
Speaker 3: of which Bob was a part, kept intense watchful eyes
13:48
Speaker 3: over the makeshift Neu Voreche commune that Marley was bankrolling.
13:52
Speaker 3: A reporter once asked Marley if he found it difficult
13:56
Speaker 3: to keep writing from the perspective of the struggling man,
13:59
Speaker 3: now that he was no longer struggling, if he found
14:02
Speaker 3: it difficult to stay in touch with the ghetto. Bob said,
14:05
Speaker 3: find it difficult. Watch now, you look into my yard.
14:09
Speaker 3: It's a ghetto. This is a ghetto you're looking at.
14:13
Speaker 3: Look out there. I've just brought the ghetto uptown two
14:18
Speaker 3: days before the Smile Jamaica concert was to take place.
14:21
Speaker 3: Bob was standing in his kitchen, taking a break from rehearsal,
14:25
Speaker 3: waiting on one of Jamaica's finest herbsmen to show up,
14:28
Speaker 3: and sharing a grapefruit with Whaler's guitarist Don Kinsey. That's
14:33
Speaker 3: when the gunshots ran out, pop pop pop. At first,
14:38
Speaker 3: the sound was in the distance, it almost sounded like fireworks,
14:41
Speaker 3: but then the second round came and there was no
14:45
Speaker 3: mistaking the sound out in the yard of gunman shot
14:48
Speaker 3: Bob's wife, Riada Marley in the head. Bob Marley's rosstafiring
14:52
Speaker 3: and Valhalla was on a siege, and two white dots
14:54
Speaker 3: and compacts had snuck in through the gates behind the
14:57
Speaker 3: car of Bob's manager Don Taylor, and quickly two teams
15:00
Speaker 3: of gunmen exited and had begun their hunt. They prowled
15:04
Speaker 3: over the grounds under the cover of night, with pistols
15:06
Speaker 3: and machine guns in hand, crouched slinking around, looking to
15:10
Speaker 3: kill their man, the man with all the influence, the
15:13
Speaker 3: man with the plan, the man they believed to be backing,
15:16
Speaker 3: Michael Manly Bob Marley. After shooting Riader Marley, one of
15:21
Speaker 3: the gunmen burst through the rehearsal room door into the
15:23
Speaker 3: house and fired a revolver off with the assembled band numbers.
15:27
Speaker 3: The gunman was no more than sixteen years old and terrified.
15:31
Speaker 3: He pissed himself while firing off multiple shots, all with
15:35
Speaker 3: his eyes closed. Over in the kitchen, a masked gunman
15:39
Speaker 3: stuck his head into the kitchen door. This dude wasn't
15:42
Speaker 3: fucking around. He raised the barrel of his submachine gun
15:45
Speaker 3: and emptied the clip toward the counter where Bob, his
15:47
Speaker 3: guitarist Don Kinsey, and manager Don Taylor was situated. Bob
15:52
Speaker 3: remained standing, but crammed his skinny body into a corner
15:54
Speaker 3: to make himself as small as a target as possible. Don
15:57
Speaker 3: Kinsey jumped behind some musical equipment as five bullets ripped
16:01
Speaker 3: into Don Taylor's side and the upper legs, and then
16:04
Speaker 3: a bullet found its way to Bob Marley. First it
16:09
Speaker 3: grazed his breastbone, then it burst by his heart and
16:13
Speaker 3: eventually lodged itself into the bicep of the singer's left arm.
16:17
Speaker 3: And then, just as soon as they had arrived, gunmen
16:21
Speaker 3: were gone. All that remained in their wake was smoke, silence,
16:26
Speaker 3: blood and ruin. Bob Marley opened his eyes. He was
16:30
Speaker 3: in pain, but he was calm. He knew that someday,
16:34
Speaker 3: maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, but one day
16:38
Speaker 3: the people who did this would get theirs. He knew
16:42
Speaker 3: in his bones that peace and love would not be
16:44
Speaker 3: cowed by violence and hate, and that justice would one
16:48
Speaker 3: day be coldly served.
16:51
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this word word word.
16:57
Speaker 3: The blood was everywhere all over his body. Bob Marley
17:01
Speaker 3: was a mess. Prime Minister Manley could hardly recognize the
17:04
Speaker 3: singer when he got to the hospital. Miraculously down the
17:08
Speaker 3: hall in a separate ward reader Marley lay in bed
17:11
Speaker 3: in fair condition, despite having a bullet lodged between her
17:14
Speaker 3: scalp and her skull, and Don Taylor had to be
17:17
Speaker 3: airlifted to a hospital in Miami. Bob was placed inder
17:21
Speaker 3: national protection by the Prime Minister and quickly ushered out
17:24
Speaker 3: of the hospital to a remote home in Jamaica's Blue
17:27
Speaker 3: Hills that belonged to Island records head Chris Blackwell. The
17:32
Speaker 3: Smile Jamaica concert that Bob had been planning for a
17:34
Speaker 3: few days later had not yet been called off, despite
17:38
Speaker 3: the headlines that gripped the island, detailing the shootout at
17:41
Speaker 3: Bob's home. Political pressure continued to mount, and so did
17:46
Speaker 3: the pressure on Bob to perform and not give in
17:48
Speaker 3: to the fear that his would be assassin's were counting on.
17:51
Speaker 3: Manley's political machine was keen on Bob not backing out.
17:56
Speaker 3: It was symbolic, don't give an inch to these animals,
17:59
Speaker 3: don't let them see sweat. But Bob, like the rest
18:02
Speaker 3: of the country, had no idea how dangerous performing would be.
18:06
Speaker 3: What would happen when he went on stage. He had
18:09
Speaker 3: a bullet lodged in his arm. The doctors told him
18:12
Speaker 3: he might never be able to play guitar again if
18:13
Speaker 3: they removed it. He told him to leave the bullet in.
18:17
Speaker 3: Bob knew he'd rise to the occasion. But what about Rita?
18:21
Speaker 3: She still had a bullet in her head. In her head,
18:24
Speaker 3: how was she supposed to sing backup alongside him? And
18:27
Speaker 3: Scarier than all that the assassins were still at large,
18:31
Speaker 3: and they were still out there when they tried to
18:33
Speaker 3: finish the job while Bob was on stage, gut him
18:36
Speaker 3: down from the shadows of the crowd. Fear hung heavy.
18:40
Speaker 3: The tension in the air was palpable. All of Jamaica
18:43
Speaker 3: felt it. This wasn't just politics, this was justice, This
18:47
Speaker 3: was right and wrong. This was quite literally freedom, the
18:50
Speaker 3: freedom to use your voice, the freedom to speak truth
18:53
Speaker 3: to power, the freedom to make your living, the freedom
18:56
Speaker 3: to live. And the gossip surrounding the shooting was everywhere,
19:00
Speaker 3: and most Jamaicans were convinced the CIA did it, or
19:03
Speaker 3: at least put the guns in the hands of the
19:05
Speaker 3: people who did do it, coached them up from the
19:08
Speaker 3: ghettos and trained them to kill as they had anti
19:10
Speaker 3: Castro Cubans a decade and a half earlier.
19:14
Speaker 2: The public pointed to.
19:15
Speaker 3: The song rat Race on the most recent Whalers album
19:17
Speaker 3: Rasta Mann Vibration as illustrative of the beef. And there
19:21
Speaker 3: was also a proof that people said because Carl Coby,
19:25
Speaker 3: the son of former Director of the CIA, William Colby,
19:28
Speaker 3: was in Jamaica as part of a film crew to
19:30
Speaker 3: shoot the Smile Jamaica concert, and sons of powerful CIA
19:35
Speaker 3: men showing up at the crime scenes of culture shifting
19:38
Speaker 3: assassinations is not an entirely uncommon thing. Senator Prescott Bush,
19:43
Speaker 3: a man who literally helped invent the CIA, you might
19:46
Speaker 3: want to look into the presence of his son, George H. W.
19:49
Speaker 3: Bush in Dallas on the day President John F. Kennedy
19:53
Speaker 3: was killed. And while you're at it, check into the
19:55
Speaker 3: declassified nineteen ninety one FBI file on George Bush's activities
20:00
Speaker 3: immediately following the assassination, as well as his experience with
20:04
Speaker 3: anti Castro Cubans. The photographic evidence, though grainy, does not lie.
20:09
Speaker 3: Google it, but I digress sort of because in nineteen
20:13
Speaker 3: seventy six, the year Bob Marley was shot, the year
20:17
Speaker 3: Jamaicans believed the CIA was running guns in support to
20:21
Speaker 3: those who opposed their Prime Minister Manly, exactly as the
20:25
Speaker 3: CIA had been doing for anti Castro Cubans a decade
20:28
Speaker 3: and a half earlier. Do you know who was the
20:31
Speaker 3: head of the CIA at that time? The answer George H. W.
20:35
Speaker 2: Bush. More rumors persisted the.
20:38
Speaker 3: Shooting happened because Bob and Skill Cole fixed a horse
20:40
Speaker 3: race and made a lot of bad people a lot
20:43
Speaker 3: less money. The shooting happened because Don Taylor, Bob's manager,
20:47
Speaker 3: was in major debt after skimming off the top of
20:49
Speaker 3: concert grosses and gambling the money away. The shooting happened
20:53
Speaker 3: because one of Bob's route boys got Bob to finance
20:55
Speaker 3: a scam that backfired majorly a fact or fiction, it
21:00
Speaker 3: didn't matter. The truth was that Bob needed to lay
21:03
Speaker 3: low for a hot minute and cool out. He sat
21:06
Speaker 3: back in Chris Blackwell's plush leather recliner and took a.
21:10
Speaker 2: Cheek hollowing hit off a spliff.
21:12
Speaker 3: Outside in the darkness, rasta vigilantes surrounded the house, armed
21:16
Speaker 3: with graye a ganja for themselves and sharp machetes for
21:20
Speaker 3: anyone who dare come try and fuck with Bob Marley again.
21:24
Speaker 2: Bob let his head wander.
21:25
Speaker 3: The Smile Jamaica concert was all he could think about,
21:29
Speaker 3: and was he going to perform? Would he be killed
21:31
Speaker 3: in the process, and who would want to kill him?
21:34
Speaker 3: He was Bob Marley. He was a man of peace.
21:37
Speaker 3: His songs inspired people to love one another, not to kill.
21:42
Speaker 3: Songs of freedom. He fought for justice, he fought for equality.
21:46
Speaker 3: And this was horseshit. And this wasn't even supposed to
21:49
Speaker 3: be a political show. It was supposed to be his show,
21:52
Speaker 3: Bob Marley's show for his people. He had to do it.
21:55
Speaker 3: Fuck the assassins, fuck the politicians, fuck the CIA. He
22:00
Speaker 3: heard one of his home invaders was so scared he
22:02
Speaker 3: pissed his own short pants. Amateur Bob was a pro
22:06
Speaker 3: a professional musician, a professional healer, a prophet, a true
22:09
Speaker 3: man of the people. If the punk shooters CIA backed
22:13
Speaker 3: no Soul mercenaries had the balls to try and finish
22:16
Speaker 3: the job at the concert, the crowd would have Bob's back.
22:19
Speaker 3: He was Jamaica's favorite son. Or if things went south
22:23
Speaker 3: and the assassins managed to get a shot off or worse,
22:25
Speaker 3: put a bullet in him, he'd go down doing what
22:28
Speaker 3: he did best, bringing the truth to the people and
22:31
Speaker 3: dying for it.
22:33
Speaker 2: And it was a cause worth fighting.
22:34
Speaker 3: For, especially if the weapon of choice was music, and
22:37
Speaker 3: really going out in a blaze of bullets on stage
22:40
Speaker 3: would make him a martyr, and that's the last thing
22:42
Speaker 3: the CIA would have wanted. Martyrs last a lot longer
22:46
Speaker 3: than one term political pawns.
22:48
Speaker 2: His mind was made up.
22:50
Speaker 3: Shit was On the day of the show finally came,
22:54
Speaker 3: Tens of thousands of fans flocked to National Heroes Park.
22:57
Speaker 3: The opening performers, Third World, took the stage, not knowing
23:01
Speaker 3: if they'd be the reluctant headliners or the warm up
23:04
Speaker 3: act for one of the most historically significant shows in
23:07
Speaker 3: the history of regae and the history of music. And
23:10
Speaker 3: what was going to happen? Was Bob Marley actually going
23:12
Speaker 3: to go through with it? Were they're warming up the
23:14
Speaker 3: stage for a dead man? Crowd had no idea what
23:17
Speaker 3: to expect. What if the entire show was a ruse,
23:20
Speaker 3: a scam. What if Bob was actually out of the
23:22
Speaker 3: country and hiding and all the concert goers were to
23:25
Speaker 3: be exterminated. That's a hell of a lot of PMP
23:28
Speaker 3: supporters who wouldn't be alive to cast their votes for
23:30
Speaker 3: Manly Or if the real Bob did step on stage,
23:33
Speaker 3: how long we last? Were they going to have to
23:36
Speaker 3: watch their hero get rubbed out in front of them?
23:38
Speaker 3: Was this about to be some real life rasta version
23:41
Speaker 3: of a snuff film? And the what IF's weighed on everyone,
23:44
Speaker 3: especially Rita, and she couldn't stand the idea of not
23:48
Speaker 3: being there for her husband, for her country. She busted
23:51
Speaker 3: out of the hospital before being discharged, decided against chancing
23:55
Speaker 3: a taxi and instead stole a car from the hospital
23:57
Speaker 3: parking lot and hotailed it out to Chris Blackwell's house,
24:00
Speaker 3: where Bob was laying low. When she arrived barely recovered
24:04
Speaker 3: from her bullet wound, wearing a hospital gown with not
24:07
Speaker 3: so fresh bandages.
24:08
Speaker 2: On her head. Bob took one look.
24:10
Speaker 3: At her and we considered, maybe this wasn't such a
24:13
Speaker 3: good idea. He knew she'd need some convincing. Bob told
24:17
Speaker 3: her the plan was to do only one song and
24:20
Speaker 3: Rita could get with that.
24:21
Speaker 2: It would be War figuratively and literally.
24:25
Speaker 3: Yes, War is the song that years later Sinead O'Connor
24:28
Speaker 3: would sing as she ripped apart a picture of the Pope.
24:31
Speaker 2: On Saturday Night Live.
24:32
Speaker 3: But that was like sticking your tongue out at somebody
24:35
Speaker 3: when they turned their back, compared to the giant fuck
24:38
Speaker 3: you statement Bob would make to his assassins with the
24:40
Speaker 3: same song on stage later that day. You're trying to
24:44
Speaker 3: shoot me down, Try again, You can't kill the tough gun.
24:49
Speaker 3: Efforts are made to round up the rest of the whalers,
24:51
Speaker 3: but since not everybody could be located by showtime, it
24:55
Speaker 3: was decided that members of Third World would sit in on.
24:58
Speaker 2: The missing instruments.
25:00
Speaker 3: What was only supposed to be one song would unravel
25:02
Speaker 3: to become ninety of the most intense minutes of live
25:05
Speaker 3: performance ever captured on film. One of the cameramen may
25:09
Speaker 3: have been the son of former CIA director, but that
25:12
Speaker 3: was a red herring. The footage of the show is
25:14
Speaker 3: grainy and hyper real, and the crowd is raging, and
25:18
Speaker 3: the exchange of energy between Bob and the audience is
25:21
Speaker 3: close to being.
25:22
Speaker 2: Something you can actually touch.
25:24
Speaker 3: The stage itself is jam packed with musicians, bodyguards and
25:28
Speaker 3: hangers on, sworn protectors of Bob Marley, keeper of the
25:32
Speaker 3: People's Flame, air to Rastafarai himself that you can see it,
25:37
Speaker 3: feel it. They're literally willing to take a bullet for him,
25:40
Speaker 3: the singer who survived a hailfire of bullets just two
25:43
Speaker 3: days before, and Marley himself flails in what little stage.
25:47
Speaker 2: Space he has. He sees as if.
25:49
Speaker 3: He's singing directly to the assassins themselves. The songs course
25:55
Speaker 3: through him with an electric current of the liberated masses.
25:58
Speaker 3: Rita is at his side, still her hospital gown and
26:01
Speaker 3: holding it down. Her head is still bandaged again from
26:05
Speaker 3: a bullet. After seven songs of protest, Marley shifts the
26:09
Speaker 3: mood from defiance to exuberance and performs trench Town Rock
26:13
Speaker 3: at the end of the fifteen song set, Bob handed
26:16
Speaker 3: off his mic, stepped to the lip of the stage
26:18
Speaker 3: and unbuttoned his shirt to show that eighty thousand people
26:21
Speaker 3: in attendance's bullet wounds. And this is the stuff religions
26:25
Speaker 3: are built upon. Nobody fucks with the tough gun. Bob
26:44
Speaker 3: Marley's manager, Don Taylor, was screaming in horror, but it
26:48
Speaker 3: didn't matter. Nobody could cure him, accept Skill Cold and
26:52
Speaker 3: a few other members of the entourage, but Skill Cole
26:55
Speaker 3: didn't care.
26:56
Speaker 2: The screams got them off.
26:58
Speaker 3: Violence, even just the threat of violence fuelled caused his
27:02
Speaker 3: chest to bubble above his heart and just below his
27:05
Speaker 3: throat with that giddy rhythm.
27:07
Speaker 2: It was like sex, but better and right now Skill
27:11
Speaker 2: was he for it.
27:12
Speaker 3: He and another member of Marley's muscle had Taylor by
27:15
Speaker 3: his ankles and were hanging him out of the seventh
27:17
Speaker 3: story window of the palace into Continental Hotel in the
27:20
Speaker 3: African country of Gabon. Taylor was pleading frantically for his life.
27:25
Speaker 3: He didn't do it, He said he couldn't have done it.
27:27
Speaker 3: He said he was one of them, He loved them,
27:30
Speaker 3: He was trustworthy, he swore. But then, of course, as
27:34
Speaker 3: the fear really said it, and it came apparent just
27:36
Speaker 3: how serious skill Cole was about dropping Dawn out of
27:40
Speaker 3: the window. The music manager sang a different tune. Okay,
27:44
Speaker 3: he did do it, but only because he had mouthed feud,
27:47
Speaker 3: and only because he knew Bob would have missed the money.
27:49
Speaker 2: And besides, he was planning on paying every penny back.
27:52
Speaker 3: Yes, he'd get Bob all of his money back if
27:54
Speaker 3: only they let him live. Skimming off the top of
27:58
Speaker 3: Bob Marley's concert proceeds had been a lot lucrative scam
28:00
Speaker 3: for Don Taylor, but it was about.
28:02
Speaker 2: To cost him his life, so he thought anyways, But
28:05
Speaker 2: Bob thought otherwise.
28:07
Speaker 3: Because Bob was in a buying he couldn't really throw
28:10
Speaker 3: his manager out of the window of his hotel. But
28:12
Speaker 3: he also couldn't just fire hi. Don Taylor knew too much.
28:16
Speaker 3: He knew all Bob's secrets. He was also the only
28:19
Speaker 3: one who knew where all Bob's bank accounts were. So
28:23
Speaker 3: he was hauled back into the hotel suite and beat
28:26
Speaker 3: about the head and face by Bob Marley and his
28:28
Speaker 3: mat And Bob.
28:29
Speaker 2: Took a gallon of milk and poured it all over
28:31
Speaker 2: Don and his wounds.
28:33
Speaker 3: Skill cocked the hammer of a twelve gage shotgun and
28:36
Speaker 3: took aim at Don's badly beaten head. Don swayed, somehow
28:40
Speaker 3: still able to stand on his feet. Two dazed and
28:42
Speaker 3: too confused from the beating to be scared anymore. Bob
28:46
Speaker 3: Marley pulled Taylor down violently by his shoulder into a
28:48
Speaker 3: chair and shoved a nine millimeter into his temple. With
28:51
Speaker 3: his free hand, Bob grabbed the other side of Don's
28:54
Speaker 3: head and pressed his head like a vice into the
28:56
Speaker 3: barrel of the gun.
28:57
Speaker 2: Barely containable rage.
28:58
Speaker 3: Seizing from the roast of firing and superstar someone pushed
29:01
Speaker 3: a pen into his manager's hand and a revised contract
29:04
Speaker 3: was furnished. Don Taylor, with Bob Marley pressing a nine
29:08
Speaker 3: millimeter hard into the side of his head, was forced
29:11
Speaker 3: to sign away all of his rights to Marley's management
29:13
Speaker 3: and allowed to stay on to continue managing Bob's business affairs,
29:17
Speaker 3: albeit under the very watchful hard eyes of Skill Coal.
29:21
Speaker 3: Justice and Bob's mind was served, and Man Suge Knight.
29:26
Speaker 2: Didn't invent anything.
29:29
Speaker 3: It had been two years since Bob Marley had been
29:31
Speaker 3: back to Jamaica. He spent his time recording in England
29:35
Speaker 3: and touring the rest of the world, and in one
29:37
Speaker 3: wild burst of creativity he ripped off two great albums,
29:41
Speaker 3: Exodus and KaiA. The songs Jamming, is This, Love, Satisfy,
29:46
Speaker 3: my Soul, Natural, Mystic, and even Three Little Birds are
29:49
Speaker 3: beyond incredible, their genre defining. You probably know most of
29:53
Speaker 3: them from the legend CD that that douchebag Trustafarian down
29:57
Speaker 3: the Hall from You and Your Dorm played on repeat
29:59
Speaker 3: non stop Freshman Year. But if you can detach yourself
30:02
Speaker 3: from that memory, the song shine and consistently call out
30:07
Speaker 3: for triumph, justice and even for vengeance. So in the
30:11
Speaker 3: spring of nineteen seventy eight, when Bob Marley returned to
30:15
Speaker 3: Jamaica after two year exile in the UK, vengeance was
30:19
Speaker 3: very much on his mind. Bob was in town to
30:22
Speaker 3: perform at the One Love Peace concert, but after the
30:25
Speaker 3: show he had other business to tend to. Rumor has
30:28
Speaker 3: it that after the show was over, Don Taylor ushered
30:31
Speaker 3: Bob to Trench Town, where a kangaroo court was in
30:34
Speaker 3: session on trial two of the men who invaded Bob's
30:38
Speaker 3: home and tried to gun him down two years earlier.
30:42
Speaker 3: Marley's men hurled insults in questions at the accused. Bob
30:46
Speaker 3: hung back, quiet, cool, stern, stoic scooface full effect. The
30:55
Speaker 3: accused pleaded for their lives. Their cries of innocence were
30:59
Speaker 3: mocked by Bob's muscle. A growing mob of trench Town
31:03
Speaker 3: locals grew impatient. Something had to give guilty. The verdict
31:09
Speaker 3: came in cold. The next of the accused men were
31:12
Speaker 3: threaded through two trench Town uses and strung.
31:15
Speaker 2: Up high in a palm tree.
31:17
Speaker 3: Bob Marley turned and walked away behind him. The guilty
31:21
Speaker 3: swung violently across the Great Divide to meet their maker,
31:25
Speaker 3: their feet jerking, their shoulders twitching, and their necks snapped.
31:32
Speaker 2: Vengeance had been delivered in court.
31:37
Speaker 3: Years later, when Don Taylor was asked who actually carried
31:40
Speaker 3: out the execution, he said, because of the love of
31:44
Speaker 3: Bob Marley by the people. The people took it upon themselves.
31:47
Speaker 3: They felt the government wasn't moving fast enough. Other friends
31:51
Speaker 3: of Marley cried bullshit. The nuts simply doesn't fit the screw,
31:55
Speaker 3: they say. Bob Marley was a good man, a man
31:58
Speaker 3: of mercy, not a man of vengeance.
32:01
Speaker 2: He couldn't do that. While there was something called the
32:03
Speaker 2: One Love Peace Concert.
32:06
Speaker 3: But Bob Marley's strong arming DJs and Bob Marley's strong
32:09
Speaker 3: arming his cheating business manager, those stories are accepted as truth.
32:15
Speaker 3: Bob Marley was a badass. Go to YouTube and check
32:17
Speaker 3: out the Smile Jamaica concert. What's more badass than appearing
32:20
Speaker 3: on stage with fresh bullet holes and taunting your assassins.
32:25
Speaker 3: So imagining Don Taylor's account of a vengeful Bob Marley
32:28
Speaker 3: presiding over the kangaroo court that found as would be
32:31
Speaker 3: assassins to be guilty is not exactly beyond a reasonable
32:35
Speaker 3: doubt whether or not Bob Marley did have anything to
32:38
Speaker 3: do with it. Most accounts hold that every single gunman
32:41
Speaker 3: who entered Bob's house that night in nineteen seventy six
32:44
Speaker 3: was indeed eventually brought to justice in violent and dramatic fashion.
32:51
Speaker 3: In addition to the hanged men, two other gunmen were
32:53
Speaker 3: poisoned with a powerful hallucinogen. One night, two other wannabe
32:57
Speaker 3: Marley killers were followed into the Jamaican Hill by a
33:00
Speaker 3: group of Rasta vigilantes. Both of their throats were slit
33:04
Speaker 3: ear to ear. They were left to bleed out and
33:07
Speaker 3: die slaughtered like the dirty goats that they were. Another
33:11
Speaker 3: gunman from that faithful night back in Kingston was caught
33:14
Speaker 3: up with all the way up in New York City.
33:17
Speaker 3: He caught a bullet in the head, and finally, the
33:21
Speaker 3: last of Bob Marley's would be assassins was rounded up
33:24
Speaker 3: in Tivoli Gardens. He was briefly bound and gagged while men,
33:29
Speaker 3: very capable men quietly and methodically dug for him a
33:33
Speaker 3: shallow grave. His bins were removed and he was buried
33:37
Speaker 3: alive in the rich Jamaican soil.
33:40
Speaker 2: Right, wrong, justice, vengeance.
33:45
Speaker 3: For some these are just words, and for others there
33:48
Speaker 3: are ideals to live by, to fight for, to die for,
33:54
Speaker 3: to kill for. When you grow up in the ghetto
33:56
Speaker 3: amongst stone, cold killers, schemers and thieves, own.
34:00
Speaker 2: Weakness isn't an option, It's a death sentence.
34:04
Speaker 3: Bob Marley made it out of the ghetto, but in
34:06
Speaker 3: this great future, you can't forget your past.
34:10
Speaker 2: I'm Jake Brennan, miss is Disgraceland.
34:19
Speaker 3: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
34:22
Speaker 3: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
34:25
Speaker 3: found on the show notes page. At disgracelampod dot com.
34:29
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34:35
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35:09
Speaker 2: Rock a Roller, He's a bad don man.