DISGRACELAND - Bob Marley: Rasta Vigilante

Episode Date: May 29, 2018

Bob Marley is known as the peace and love reggae superstar, but the truth of who he really was is a bit more complicated. After gunmen raided his home, putting bullets into him, his wife, his manager and his guitar player, Bob survived. But the lives of his assassins—all of them—were eventually brought to violent, horrific ends. And their killers were never found. Many think the perpetrator was an angry young man from the Trenchtown ghetto, who was called, by those who feared him, “Screwface." Was it Bob Marley, Rasta Vigilante? To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠. This episode was originally released on May 29, 2018. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠YouTube⁠ ⁠X⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠ ⁠TikTok  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. The truth about Bob Marley is pretty nuts. The peace and love, Rastafarian reggae superstar was also a violent, revenge-fueled kid from the Trench Town ghetto who would not be denied justice or his due. He once hung his manager out of a hotel window to renegotiate a contract.

He and his friends were known to strong-armed DJs for radio play. And in a rage, he james. rammed a pistol into the side of a colleague's head until he was given what he wanted. If you were the big tree and in his way, he was the small axe sharpened to cut you down. And he sought and possibly attain justice by having a Trenchtown kangaroo court string up his would-be assassins from palm trees. Bob Marley believed in justice, but there was a thin line between justice and vengeance. You can hear both themes throughout his music.

And Bob Marley made great music, some of the greatest music ever made, in fact. That music at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a loop from my Melotron called Rumba Guitar Low, MK2. And I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to night fever by the Bee Gees. And why would I play you that specific slice of hairy medallion cheese, could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on April 22nd, 1978, and that was the day that Bob Marley, international reggae superstar, the tough gong,

and the Rastafarian man of peace and love, may or may not have brought violent justice down upon his enemies. On this episode, a kangaroo court, rumba guitars, hairy medallion cheese, Bob Marley, and Rastafarian vengeance. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgrace land. Annie Ford Capri had even stopped skidding. The four young men from Trenchtown jumped out and onto the unpaved parking lot of the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. One of them was Bob Marley, and he was pissed.

Pissed off that his bandmate, Bunny Livingston, didn't want a tour. Pissed off that money was tight. Still in his 20s, he was supporting seven children by four different women. Jah will provide, but within reason. And most important, in this moment, Bob was pissed. off that his latest single, despite being the number one selling song in all of Jamaica, couldn't get spun on the radio. Trenchdown Hood's got a bad rap, but the real gangsters were the suits in the music industry, pulling strings and playing Kingmaker. Bob's song, Small Axe, killed.

And so did Bob's right-hand man, the man rushing the radio station with him at the moment, who went by the unambiguous nickname, Take Life. He was a brutal presence back in the ghetto. A second killer hurried along Bob's other side, and the last man, the wheelman, a professional footballer named Alan Skill Cole, who, when he unfolded his six-foot-five-inch body out of the front door of the fast-back coop, made it look more like a clown car. But there would be no clowning around on this visit to the radio station. These guys meant business. Skill carried with him a cricket bat. Take life carried a ratchet knife. And Bob? Bob Marley carried with him a lifetime of of angst and desperation that only growing up in abject poverty can add to your load. The foursome burst into the studio, uninvited and intimidating is all hell. You go and play the new Whalers record on JBC.

Bob demanded of the confused British DJ behind the console. Take life, leaned back against the wall, played it cool, cleaned his fingernails with his knife, and sucked on his teeth while the other, short, well-dressed thug, Frouser loosened up his neck muscles to let the DJ know in no uncertain terms that he was ready for combat. Skill just smacked his open palm with the cricket bat, slowly and stared with menace. And then he said, listen here, if we don't hear small axe on JBC before an hour pass, we smash your windscreen. Then if another hour pass, and we don't hear small axe, we smash your face.

skill had recently begun helping the whalers out with what he called quote-unquote management his jamaican patois was a little easier for the cowering dj to understand than the words of marley who now fixed the dj with an intense gaze a look that those who knew him called screw face the dj had heard tale of marley in his muscle visiting the island's only other major station radio jamaica earlier in the week the damage amounted to one broken nose was four slashed tires and a sudden increase in airplay for Bob Marley. The only thing the DJ was able to verify was that he had indeed heard small acts on Radio Jamaica on his drive to work that morning. And now, here was Bob's screwface Marley, the tough gong himself, armed with a couple of thugs and the country's best footballer staring him in the face. He had only one choice.

And so, Bob Marley's top-selling Jamaican smash, Small Axe, cut through the island's airwaves. And all around his hometown, people were finally able to hear Bob Marley on their radios. His message was revolution. His message was love. His message was peace. And so what if the message needed a little strong arm to get across?

Jamaican radio in the 1970s was difficult for Rostas to crack. There were only two radio stations on the island. One played disco, and the other was busy trying to be the BBC. And they both ignored the musical revolution growing like weeds right outside their studio doors. Reggae was alive throughout the streets of Jamaica, a true music of the people. But in Jamaica, just like in America, it was pay to play. If you wanted a record played on the radio, well, you better show the program manager some love and come calling with cash or Coke or women or all three.

But bribes weren't enough. The proletariat power of reggae, even in those early days, spooked radio programmers, And despite whatever enticements were brought their way, DJs were still reluctant to accept them from the dreadlocked rastas. But Take Life, Frouser, and Skill brought a different set of skills to the proverbial negotiating table, and things for the Whalers and Bob Marley slowly started to change. That the radio station was ignoring the needs of the masses

was symptomatic of a larger political problem in Jamaica. The island achieved independence about a decade before in 1962. but Jamaica was still unapologetically neo-colonial, run by a lazy white middle-class minority who had their own interests at heart and had no interest in losing their power to the masses in the shanty towns. The gulf between the rich and the poor seemed to widened daily, even under the socialist rule of Prime Minister Michael Manley

and his People's National Party. Life in Jamaica was rough, so its citizens looked to their government for change, and everyone had seemed, took an interest in politics, including it was rumored the American government, who had a vested interest in ousting the sitting prime minister in favor of their own puppet.

So, mysterious shipments of guns started floating up on Jamaican shores that were handed out in the ghetto. CIA agents began training rude boys on how to use their new M16s. Rumors started circulating that Prime Minister Michael Manley was a communist puppet for Cuba's Fidel Castro, and as such, disrupt. was sown, and the tiny country was further destabilized. Meanwhile, as Bob Marley's star rose and as his name began to ring out throughout the island,

he formed an alliance with Michael Manley, the sitting prime minister and his People's National Party, also known as the PNP in the early 70s. The Whalers headlined a 1971 tour called the PNP Musical Bandwagon. And whenever asked in interviews, which are the two parties he preferred, Bob would always stump for the People's National Party. In nearly all of these interviews, and Bob Marley did a lot of interviews, he would also extol the virtues of Ganja, encourage all blacks to repatriate to Africa,

and preach that mighty God was a living man, Ethiopian Emperor highly Salasi, a.k.a. J. Rastafari, I and I will survive. Bob was far out. Unconventional. Even so, with his new clout, his endorsement of Michael Manley carried weight. Bob was fast becoming an international superstar, and with or without Jamaican radio,

Jamaicans were listening to him, an apt to follow his lead, politically, as well as his message of revolution and justice. For years, Marley had been yearning to expand his message beyond the island. He struck out on his own, and the Whalers became Bob Marley in the Whalers, after founding members Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston quit. It was also time for Marley to get a new manager. Although Skill Cole had been helpful, or at least forceful, in Marley's development,

and he was a hell of a lot of fun to kick the ball around with, skill was returning to the world of professional soccer. So, in 1973, when the whaler shared a bill with Marvin Gay, Bob Marley met Don Taylor, the concerts organizer, and a business relationship was struck. Taylor had strong U.S. music industry connections and a shrewd business acumen. This, coupled with Marley's natural and immense appeal, helped Bob make influential friends from other parts of the world.

By the mid-70s, most major rock acts had begun integrating reggae into their sound, and it was entirely because of Bob Marley, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, and Paul Simon. Some did it more convincingly than others. Eric Clapton covered, I shot the sheriff, and Clapton was God. And so to white kids, that meant God was covering Bob Marley, a ghetto kid from a tiny island a large portion of the world had barely heard of. Stevie Wonder even wrote a song about Bob Marley. And after the Whaler shared a bill with Steve,

he had a benefit concert in 1975, Bob decided he wanted to give something back to the Jamaican people, respect his roots, and hold a free concert. The concert was to be an apolitical event called the Smile Jamaica Concert, but nothing in Jamaica in 1976 was apolitical. Bob's intention was to bring people together to ease social tensions on the eve of a divisive election. Prime Minister Michael Manley wanted the concert to be held on the Prime Minister's lawn.

Bob felt like he was being played by Manley's political machine, being boxed into a position where he would be seen as being too far out on his front foot as a political shill. So Bob declined. Fuck that. Bob Marley wasn't going to go calling on the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister could come calling on Bob Marley. The concert, it was decided, would be held at the National Heroes Park. But then, shortly after the date of the conference, was announced, Manley's incumbent political party pulled a fast one and moved the election

up two weeks, effectively making the event seem like a rally for Michael Manley himself, when in effect that was never to be the case. It did indeed now look like Bob was shilling for Manley to win the election. Bob Marley was pissed, but perhaps more important, the heavily armed CIA-backed conservative labor party back in the ghetto was even more pissed. This election was war, every battle mattered, and if Bob Marley, the country's biggest star, was openly supporting their sworn enemy Prime Minister Manly, then this was not to be tolerated. Marley, fully backing Manly, even by accident or by manipulation, was a bridge too far, a bridge worth blowing up, a bridge worth dying on. If Bob Marley was going to help win the re-election for the Prime Minister,

then Bob Marley had to be stopped by any means necessary. Bob Marley had made it. He knew this because he'd moved from the slums of Trenchtown, Jamaica, to a Kingston estate. And perhaps out of guilt, or perhaps just because he was a truly righteous dude, Bob Marley took Trenchdown to Kingston with him. Bob was more than happy to allow all sorts of friends and hangers on to get together and feel all right at his swanky new digs, and if in doing so he brought the property values of his white devil neighbors down, then so be it.

His front yard was overrun by gangsters, gunmen, and half-naked children, many of them his own from an ever-expanding stable of women who weren't his wife. Members of the 12 tribes of Israel, an intense sect of Rastafarianism, of which Bob was apart, kept intense, watchful eyes over the makeshift Nouveau-Riege commune that Marley was bankrolling. A reporter once asked Marley, if he found it difficult, to keep writing from the perspective of the struggling man now that he was no longer struggling.

If he found it difficult to stay in touch with the ghetto. Bob said, find it difficult? Watch now. You look in the my yard. It's a ghetto. This is a ghetto you're looking at. Look out there. I've just brought the ghetto uptown.

Two days before the smile in Jamaica concert was to take place, Bob was standing in his kitchen, taking a break from rehearsal, waiting on one of Jamaica's finest herbsmen to show up and sharing a grapefruit with whaler's guitarist Don Kinsey. That's when the gunshots ran out. At first, the sound was in the distance. It almost sounded like fireworks,

but then the second round came. And there was no mistaking the sound. Out in the yard of gunmen shot Bob's wife, Reader Marley, in the head. Bob Marley's Rastafarian Valhalla was under siege, and two white dots and compacts had snuck in through the gates behind the car of Bob's manager Don Taylor, and quickly, two teams of gunmen exited and had begun their hunt. They prowled over the grounds under the cover of night with pistols and machine guns in hand, crouched, slinking around, looking to kill their man, the man with all the influence, the man with

the plan, the man they believed to be backing Michael Manly, Bob Marl. After shooting Rita Marley, one of the gunmen burst through the rehearsal room door into the house and fired a revolver off with the assembled band numbers. The gunman was no more than 16 years old and terrified. He pissed himself while firing off multiple shots, all with his eyes closed. Over in the kitchen, a masked gunman stuck his head into the kitchen door. This dude wasn't fucking around.

He raised the barrel of his submachine gun and entered the clip toward the counter with Bob, his guitarist Don Kinsey, and manager Don Taylor, were situated. Bob remained standing but crammed his skinny, body into a corner to make himself as small of a target as possible, Don Kinsey jumped behind some musical equipment as five bullets ripped into Don Taylor's side and upper legs. And then, a bullet found its way to Bob Marley. First, it grazed his breastbone.

Then, it burst by his heart and eventually lodged itself into the bicep of the singer's left arm. And then, just as soon as they'd arrived, gunmen were gone. All that remained in their wake was smoke, silence, blood, and ruin. Bob Marley opened his eyes. He was in pain, but he was calm. He knew that someday, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, but one day the people who did this would get theirs. He knew in his bones that peace and love would not be cowed by violence and hate

and that justice would one day be coldly served. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. Blood was everywhere, all over his body. Bob Marley was a mess. Prime Minister Manley could hardly recognize the singer when he got to the hospital. Miraculously, down the hall in a separate ward, Reader Marley lay in bed in fair condition despite having a bullet lodge between her scalp and her skull. And Don Taylor had to be airlifted to a hospital in Miami.

Bob was placed under national protection by the Prime Minister and quickly ushered out of the hospital to a remote home in Jamaica's Blue Hills that belonged to Island Records Head, Chris Blackwell. The smiled Jamaica concert that Bob had been planning for a few days later had not yet been called off, despite the headlines that gripped the island detailing the shootout at Bob's home.

Political pressure continued to mount, and so did the pressure on Bob to perform and not give in to the fear that his would-be assassins were counting on. Manley's political machine was keen on Bob not backing out. It was symbolic. Don't give an inch to these animals. Don't let him see his sweat. But Bob, like the rest of the country,

had no idea how dangerous performing would be. What would happen when he went on stage? He had a bullet lodged in his arm. The doctors told him he might never be able to play guitar again if they removed it. He told him to leave the bullet in. Bob knew he'd rise to the occasion. But what about Rita? She still had a bullet in her head.

In her head! How was she supposed to sing back up alongside him? And scarier than all that. The assassins were still at large, and they were still out there. When they tried to finish the job while Bob was on stage? Gun them down from the shadows of the crowd. Fear hung heavy. The tension in the air was palpable.

All of Jamaica felt it. This wasn't just politics. justice. This was right and wrong. This was quite literally freedom, the freedom to use your voice, the freedom to speak truth to power, the freedom to make you living, the freedom to live. And the gossip surrounding the shooting was everywhere, and most Jamaicans were convinced the CIA did it, or at least put the guns in the hands of the people who did do it, coached them up from the ghettos, and trained them to kill as they had anti-Castro Cubans a decade and a half earlier. The public pointed to the song Rat Race

on the most recent Whalers album, Rastaman Vibration, as illustrative of the beef. And there was also proof, the people said, because Carl Colby, the son of former director of the CIA William Colby, was in Jamaica, as part of a film crew to shoot the Smile Jamaica concert. And sons of powerful CIA men showing up at the crime scenes of culture-shifting assassinations is not an entirely uncommon thing. Senator Prescott Bush, a man who literally helped invent the CIA,

you might want to look into the presence of his son, George H.W. Bush, in Dallas, on the day President John F. Kennedy was killed. And while you're at it, check into the declassified 1991 FBI file on George Bush's activities immediately following the assassination, as well as his experience with anti-Castro Cubans. The photographic evidence, though grainy, does not lie. Google it, but I digress. Sort of. Because in 1976, the year Bob Marley was shot, the year Jamaicans believed the CIA was running guns and support to those who opposed their prime minister Manly, exactly as the CIA had been doing for anti-Castro Cubans a decade and a half earlier. Do you know who was the head of the CIA at that time? The answer, George H.W. Bush. More rumors persisted. The shooting happened because Bob and Skill Cole fixed a horse race. It made a lot of bad people a lot less money.

The shooting happened because Don Taylor, Bob's manager, was in major debt after skimming off the top of concert grosses and gambling the money away. The shooting happened because one of Bob's rude boys got Bob to finance a scam that backfired majorly. But fact or fiction, it didn't matter. The truth was that Bob needed to lay low for a hot minute and cool out. He sat back in Chris Blackwell's plush, leather recliner,

and took a cheek hollowing hit off a spliff. Outside in the darkness, Rasta vigilantes surrounded the house, armed with great-Aiganga for themselves and sharp machetes for anyone who dare come try and fuck with Bob Marley again. Bob let his head wander. The smile in Jamaica concert was all he could think about.

Was he going to perform? Would he be killed in the process? And who would want to kill him? He was Bob Marley. He was a man of peace. His songs inspired people, love one another, not to kill. Songs of Freedom. He fought for justice. He fought for equality. And this was horseshit. And this wasn't even supposed to be a political show. It was supposed to be his

show, Bob Marley's show, for his people. He had to do it. Fuck the assassins. Fuck the politicians. Fuck the CIA. He heard one of his home invaders was so scared he pissed his own short pants, amateur. Bob was a pro, a professional musician, a professional healer, a prophet, a trust. A true man of the people. If the punk shooters, CIA, back no soul mercenaries had the balls to try and finish the job at the concert, the crowd would have Bob's back.

He was Jamaica's favorite son. Or, if things went south and the assassins managed to get a shot off or worse, put a bullet in him, he'd go down doing what he did best, bringing the truth to the people and dying for it. And it was a cause worth fighting for,

especially if the weapon of choice was music. And really, going out in a blaze of bull, bullets on stage would make him a martyr. And that's the last thing the CIA would have wanted. Martyrs last a lot longer than one-term political pawns. His mind was made up. Shit was on. The day of the show finally came.

Tens of thousands of fans flocked to National Heroes Park. The opening performers' third world took the stage, not knowing if they'd be the reluctant headliners of the warm-up act for one of the most historically significant shows in the history of reggae. and the history of music. And what was going to happen? Was Bob Marley actually going to go through with it?

Were they warming up the stage for a dead man? The crowd had no idea what to expect. What if the entire show was a ruse, a scam? What if Bob was actually out of the country in hiding and all the concert goers were to be exterminated? That's a hell of a lot of PMP supporters who wouldn't be alive to cast their votes for Manley. Or if the real Bob did step on stage, how long we last?

Were they going to have to watch their hero get rubbed out in front of them? Was this about to be some real-life rasta version of a snuff film? The what-ifs weighed on everyone, especially Rita, and she couldn't stand the idea of not being there. For her husband, for her country, she busted out of the hospital before being discharged, decided against chancing a taxi, and instead stole a car from the hospital parking lot,

and hitheled it out to Chris Blackwell's house where Bob was laying low. When she arrived, barely recovered from her bullet wound, wearing a hospital gown, With not so fresh bandages on her head, Bob took one look at her and reconsidered. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. He knew she'd need some convincing. Bob told her the plan was to do only one song, and Rita could get with that. It would be war, figuratively.

Yes, war is the song that years later, Shnade O'Connor would sing as she ripped apart a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live, but that was like sticking your tongue out at somebody when they'd turn their back compared to the giant fuck-you statement Bob would make to his assassins with the same song on stage later that day. You're trying to shoot me down? Try again. You can't kill the tough gun. Efforts are made to round up the rest of the whalers, but since not everybody could be located by Showtime, it was decided that members of Third World would sit in on the missing instruments. What was only supposed to be one song would unravel to become 90 of the most intense minutes of live performance

ever captured on film. One of the cameramen may have been the son of former CIA director, but that was a red herring. The footage of the show is grainy and hyper-reel, and the crowd is raging. In the exchange of energy between Bob and the audience is close to being

something you can actually touch. The stage itself is jam-packed with musicians, bodyguards, and hangers-on, sworn protectors of Bob Marley, keeper of the people's flame, heir to Rastafari himself, You can see it, feel it.

They're literally willing to take a bullet for him, the singer who survived a hailfire of bullets just two days before. And Marley himself flails in what little stage space he has. He sees as if he's singing directly to the assassins themselves. The songs course through him with an electric current of the liberated masses. Rita is at his side, still in her hospital gown and holding it down. Her head is still bandaged again from a bullet. After seven songs of protest, Marley shifts the mood from defiance to exuberance and performs Trench Town Rock.

At the end of the 15 songs set, Bob handed off his mic, stepped to the lip of the stage, and unbuttoned his shirt to show the 80,000 people in attendance as bullet wounds. And this is the stuff religions are built upon. Nobody fucks with the tough gong. Bob Marley's manager, Don Taylor, was screaming in horror. But it didn't matter. Nobody could hear him. except Skill Cole and a few other members of the entourage.

But Skill Cole didn't care. The screams got him off. Violence, even just the threat of violence, it fueled him. It caused his chest to bubble above his heart and just below his throat with that giddy rhythm. It was like sex, but better. And right now, Skill was euphoric. He and another member of Marley's muscle

had Taylor by his ankles and were hanging him out of the seven-story window of the Palace Intercontinental Hotel in the African country of Gabon. Taylor was pleading frantically for his life. He didn't do it, he said. He couldn't have done it, he said. He was one of them.

He loved them. He was trustworthy. He swore. But then, of course, as the fear really set it, and it came apparent just how serious skill coal was about dropping Don out of the window, the music manager sang a different tune. Okay, he did do it,

but only because he had miles to feed and only because he knew Bob wouldn't miss the money. And besides, he was a good. He was planning on paying every penny back. Yes, he'd get Bob all of his money back, if only they'd let him live. Skimming off the top of Bob Marley's concert proceeds have been a lucrative scam for Don Taylor, but it was about to cost him his life. So he thought anyways.

But Bob thought otherwise, because Bob was in a bind. He couldn't really throw his manager out of the window of his hotel. But he also couldn't just spiral. Don Taylor knew too much. He knew all Bob's secrets. He was also the only one who knew. knew where all Bob's bank accounts were. So, he was hauled back into the hotel suite

and beat about the head and face by Bob Marley and his met. And Bob took a gallon of milk and poured it all over Don and his wounds. Skill cocked the hammer of a 12-gauge shotgun and took aim at Don's badly beaten head. Don swayed, somehow still able to stand on his feet. Two dazed and too confused from the beating to be scared anymore. Bob Marley pulled Taylor down violently by his shoulder into a chair and shoved a nine millimeter into his temple.

With his free hand, Bob grabbed the other side of Don's head and pressed his head like a vice into the barrel of the gun. Barely containable rage seething from the Rastafarian superstar. Someone pushed a pen into his manager's hand, and a revised contract was furnished. Don Taylor, with Bob Marley pressing a nine millimeter hard into the side of his head, was forced to sign away all of his rights to Marley's management

and allowed to stay on to continue managing Bob's business affairs, albeit under the very watchful hard eyes of skill coal. Justice and Bob's mind was served. And man, Shugnight didn't invent anything. It had been two years since Bob Marley had been back to Jamaica. He spent his time recording in England and touring the rest of the world. And in one wild burst of creativity, he ripped off two great albums, Exodus and Chaya. The song's jamming, Is This Love, Satisfy My Soul, Natural Mistow,

and even three little birds are beyond incredible. They are genre defining. You probably know most of them from the legend CD that that douchebag trust a farian down the hall from you in your dorm played on repeat non-stop freshman year. But if you can detach yourself from that memory, the song shine and consistently call out for triumph, justice, and even for vengeance.

So, in the spring of 1978, when Bob Marley returned to Jamaica after two-year exile in the year, U.K., vengeance was very much on his mind. Bob was in town to perform at the One Love Peace Concert, but after the show, he had other business to tend to. Rumor has it that after the show was over, Don Taylor ushered Bob to trench town where a kangaroo court was in session. On trial, two of the men who invaded Bob's home and tried to gun him down two years earlier.

Marley's men hurled insults and questions at the accused. Bob hung back. Quiet, cool, stern, stoic, screw face, and full effect. The accused pleaded for their lives. Their cries of innocence were mocked by Bob's muscle. A growing mob of Trenchtown locals grew impatient. Something had to give. Guilty.

The verdict came in cold. The necks of the accused men were threaded through two Trench Town nooses and strung up high in a palm tree. Bob Marley turned and walked away. Behind him, the guilty swung violently across the Great Divide to meet their maker. Their feet jerking, their shoulders twitching, and their necks snapped. Vengeance had been delivered. In court, years later, when Don Taylor was asked who actually carried out the execution,

he said, because of the love of Bob Marley by the people, the people took it upon themselves. They felt the government wasn't moving fast enough. Other friends of Marley cried bullshit. The nut simply doesn't fit the screw, they say. Bob Marley was a good man, a man of mercy, not a man of vengeance. He couldn't do that while there was something called the One Love Peace concert. But Bob Marley strong-arming DJs and Bob Marley strong-arming his cheating business manager? Those stories are accepted as truth.

Bob Marley was a badass. Go to YouTube and check out the Smile Jamaica concert. What's more badass than appearing on stage? stage with fresh bullet holes and taunting your assassins. So imagining Don Taylor's account of a vengeful Bob Marley presiding over the kangaroo court that found his would-be assassins to be guilty is not exactly beyond a reasonable doubt. Whether or not Bob Marley did have anything to do with it, most accounts hold that every single gunman who entered Bob's house that night in 1976 was indeed eventually brought to justice

in violent and dramatic fashion. In addition to the hanged men, two other gunmen were poisoned with a powerful hallucinogen. One night, two other wannabe Marley killers were followed into the Jamaican hills by a group of Rasta vigilantes. Both of their throats were slit, ear to ear. They were left to bleed out and die, slaughtered like the dirty goats that they were. Another gunman from that faithful night back in Kingston was caught up with all the way up in New York City. He caught a bullet in the head. And finally, the last of Bob Marley's would-be assassins

was rounded up in Tivoli Gardens. He was briefly bound and gagged, while men, very capable men, quietly and methodically, dug for him a shallow grave. His binds were removed, and he was buried alive in the rich to make in soil. Right, wrong, justice, vengeance. For some, these are just words,

and for others there are ideals to live by, to fight for, to die for, to kill for. When you grow up in the ghetto among stone cold killers, schemers, and thieves, showing weakness isn't an option. It's a death sentence. Bob Marley made it out of the ghetto, but in this great future, you can't forget your past. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland.

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