Bob Marley was a seminal figure in popular music in the post-Beatles era: not the first person to introduce reggae to the radio but the first reggae superstar – and one of the first superstars to emerge from the Third World.
So “Marley” is a welcome documentary, one that celebrates his spirit, his creativity, his genius and his influence. If it errs on the side of hagiography, well, at least it gives us glimpses of previously unseen (and unheard) Marley performances, and as much interview footage as filmmaker Kevin Macdonald could collect.
Why, then, does “Marley” feel incomplete? Make no mistake: I enjoyed the film and found the interviews intriguing – with everyone from Chris Blackwell (who signed Marley to his record label) to Bunny Wailer (one of Marley’s original bandmates) to his wife Rita, his girlfriend Cindy Breakspeare and a couple of his children.
They tell a story of young Bob who, as a kid, always wanted to make music and began recording at a young age. He also had a highly developed sense of social justice, which sprang from his poverty-stricken youth and his own sense of being an outsider because he was mixed race, the son of a British soldier who never acknowledged him.
One love. And many weed-themed products.
A line of marijuana accessories, hemp body
products and what's being marketed as the first global brand of
commercial weed, all bearing the blessing of reggae superstar Bob Marley's estate, went on sale this week.
Backed by Privateer Holdings, a Seattle-based
private equity firm focused on the cannabis indsutry, the Marley Natural
brand is clearly designed to appeal to a wider customer base than
college kids with a Bob Marley "Legend" poster on their dorm room wall.
Body care products like hemp seed lotion and body wash, as well as
accessories like a wood-accented bubbler and black walnut wooden case,
are available for order online.
The company's brand of legal marijuana will be
available starting Saturday in Los Angeles, with plans to bring it to
the rest of California, Colorado, Washington, Nevada and Oregon later
this year. And all the products are cleanly packaged enough to look not
out of place at your local Whole Foods.
"We are fortunate to be living during a
promising time of positive change, especially with regard to cannabis
and how people understand it," Cedella Marley, the singer's daughter,
said in a statement. "My dad would be so happy to see so many people
appreciating the natural, healing power of the herb."
The brand built around Bob Marley has done very
well since the man himself died in 1981 at the age of 36. He ranks
fourth on the Forbes list of top-earning dead celebrities, thanks to
continued high record sales and other products, including beverages and
lifestyle lines. Marley's name netted a total of $21 million in 2015,
according to Forbes.
He'll likely only shoot up that list with the
money that's almost certainly guaranteed by the launch of Marley
Natural. The market for legal weed is growing, and a brand built around a
man known almost everywhere on the planet for his devotion to marijuana
as a vehicle for religious experience — and bolstered by marketing from
the same folks who brought us the Starbucks mermaid — seems like a sure
bet.
National sales of legal marijuana jumped from
$4.6 to $5.4 billion in 2015, according to research from the ArcView
Group, which tracks the cannabis industry, and could climb to $6.7
billion for this year.
They project the market could balloon to as much
as $21.8 billion over the next five years, with adult recreational
users taking over the lion's share of the market from medicinal
marijuana buyers.
Courtesy of Marley Natural / Courtesy of Marley Natural
"The strong growth in demand for legal cannabis
over the past two years is expected to continue in the years ahead,"
ArcView says in the report, which was released Feb 1. "With nearly a
dozen states debating changes to their cannabis laws in the coming year,
2016 will be the tipping point in which a majority of U.S. states
transition from cannabis prohibition to some form of regulated legal
markets."
While Marley is arguably popular culture's most
popular ambassador of marijuana, everyone from Melissa Etheride to Snoop
Dogg to Willie Nelson have made moves to get in on the act, as what was
once a mildly rebellious act becomes ever more mainstream.
"It is extremely important to us and to the
family that Marley Natural operates with integrity and a strong social
conscience," Marley Natural general manager Tahira Rehmatullah said in a
statement. "We source our products in an environmentally and socially
responsible way, as we believe Bob Marley would have wanted."
