Rita Marley

Rita Marley
Birth name Alpharita Constantia Anderson
Born (1946-07-25) 25 July 1946
Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
Origin Kingston, Jamaica
Genres Reggae
Occupation(s) Singer
Years active 1966–present
Labels Shanachie
Associated acts Bob Marley and the Wailers, The I Threes

Alpharita Constantia "Rita" Marley OD (née Anderson; born 25 July 1946), is a Cuban-Jamaican singer and the widow of Bob Marley. She was a member of the vocal group the I Threes, along with Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt, who gained recognition as the backing vocalists for Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Biography

Early life and marriage to Bob Marley

Rita was born July 25 1946 in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, to Leroy Anderson and Cynthia "Beda" Jarrett. She grew up in the upper level of Beachwood Avenue, located in Kingston, Jamaica. In her book No Woman, No Cry: My Life with Bob Marley Rita describes how she was raised by her Aunt Viola on Greenwich Park Road. Bob was from the lower level of Trenchtown.

In the mid 1960s, Rita met Bob after meeting Peter Tosh. After it was learned that she was a singer, she was asked to audition for the Soulettes, later known as the I Threes. The group included Rita, her cousin Constantine "Dream" Walker, and Marlene "Precious" Giffordwas. Bob became the group's mentor and manager and through working together, he and Rita fell in love.

On 3 December 1976 two days before "Smile Jamaica", a free concert organised by the Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley Rita, Bob, and manager Don Taylor were wounded in an assault by unknown gunmen inside the Marley home. Rita survived a shot to the head and Taylor sustained serious injuries from being shot in the leg. Bob Marley had a bullet skid his chest and wound his arm.

Later life

After Marley's death, she recorded a few albums under her name with some success in the United Kingdom.

In 1986, Rita made the decision to convert Bob Marley's home into the Bob Marley Museum. She is also the Founder and Chairperson of the Robert Marley Foundation, Bob Marley Trust, and the Bob Marley Group of Companies. She has also adopted 35 children in Ethiopia and has assisted over 200 children in Konkonuru Methodist School in Ghana where she has been granted citizenship.[1]

In 2000, Rita Marley founded the Rita Marley Foundation. It is a non-governmental, not-for-profit, non-partisan organization that works to alleviate poverty and hunger in developing countries. It specifically targets elderly and youth.[2]

It has given out a number of scholarships to music students in Ghana's Berklee College of Music. It also hosts the annual Africa Unite concerts which looks to spread global awareness about issues that affect Africa and to develop lasting solutions.[3]

Rita appears in the song "Mary Jane Shoes" on Fergie's multi-platinum 2006 album The Dutchess. Rita performed background vocals to the song "Raikoum" by Khaled in his album Liberté. She also performed background vocals for the song Ouelli El Darek by Khaled in his album Sahra.

In 1996 Rita Marley was awarded the Order of Distinction by the Jamaican government, and in 2010 received the Marcus Garvey Lifetime Award.[4] On 3 August 2013, she was made an honorary citizen of Ghana by the Ghanaian government.[3] In November 2015 Marley was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by the University of the West Indies.[4]

Plan to rebury her husband

Rita Marley planned to have the body of her late husband, Bob Marley, exhumed and buried in Ethiopia, his "spiritual resting place" in 2005. She wanted it to be a month long celebration of what would be his 60th birthday. The area in which she wanted to bury him was a Rastafarian community that was given land by the country's last emperor, Haile Selassie. She claimed to have the backing of the Ethiopian government and said "We are working on bringing his remains to Ethiopia. It is part of Bob's own mission. Bob's whole life is about Africa, it is not about Jamaica. How can you give up a continent for an island? He has a right for his remains to be where he would love them to be. This was his mission. Ethiopia is his spiritual resting place. With the 60th anniversary this year, the impact is there and the time is right."[5]

Children

Rita has six children, two from other relationships and four with Bob. Bob adopted Rita's two children as his own and they have the Marley name. Bob has 14 children in total: the two of Rita's that he adopted, four born to Rita, and the remaining eight with separate women.[6][7] Rita's children are, in order of birth:

  1. Sharon Marley, born 23 November 1964
  2. Cedella Marley born 23 August 1967
  3. David Nesta "Ziggy" Marley, born 17 October 1968
  4. Stephen Marley, born 20 April 1972
  5. Stephanie, born 17 August 1974 (from a relationship with Ital, according to Bob's mother, Cedella Booker)
  6. Serita Stewart, born 11 August 1985 (from a relationship with Tacky, according to her biography)

Discography

Collaborations

Books

Rita Marley, Hettie Jones (2004). No Woman, No Cry: My Life with Bob Marley. Hyperion, ISBN 0-7868-6867-8

References

  1. ↑ Archived 18 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ↑ Archived 2 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine.
  3. 1 2 "Ghana to honour Nana Rita Marley - Entertainment". Jamaica Observer. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Rita Marley gets Doctor of Letters degree from UWI", Jamaica Gleaner, 7 November 2015. Retrieved 7 November 2015
  5. ↑ "News for Rita Marley". IMDb.com. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  6. ↑ "Meredith Dixon". Debate.uvm.edu. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  7. ↑ {{url=http://www.musicacloud.com/rita-marley|title=Rita Marley|date=June 2015}}

External links

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