Marley Fest

Bob Marley Festival

The performance I chose to write my paper on was the Bob Marley Festival in Bayside, Miami. The festival took place on March third of this year. The purpose of the festival was to help cure hunger around the world. Besides purchasing your ticket, every person at the festival had to either donate four cans of food or pay an extra five dollars just for entry. This aspect of the concert moved me because it shows that all of these artists care about our planet and want everyone to live a long healthy life. It is about bettering oneself.

Most of the performers were reggae artists. The good majority were Rastafarians. The Rastafari movement, is a religion and philosophy that accepts Haile Selassie I, the former Emperor of Ethiopia, as God incarnate, whom they call Jah. He is also seen as part of the Holy Trinity as the messiah promised in the Bible to return. The name Rastafari comes from Ras (Head or Duke or Chief) Tafari Makonnen, the pre-coronation name of Haile Selassie I. The movement emerged in Jamaica in the early 1930s among working-class and peasant black people. It came from an interpretation of Biblical prophecy partly based on Selassie's status as the only African monarch of a fully independent state. The Rastafari movement has spread throughout much of the world, largely through interest generated by reggae music, most notably, that of Jamaican-born singer/songwriter Bob Marley. By the year 2000, there were more than one million Rastafarians worldwide. Roughly five to ten percent of Jamaicans identify themselves as Rastafari. This shows the impact the music of Bob Marley had on people around the world.

The festival itself was an interesting experience. It seemed to be a mixed crowd and from what I saw, everyone enjoyed themselves. There were people singing and dancing on the grass without a care in the world. The crowd was roughly around 10,000. The event sold out and security had to restrict the entry of some people. The scene reminded me like one from Woodstock. The majority of the people were on the grass of the amphitheater on blankets. Some were dancing and some laying down looking at the stars. The venue made the festival. It was spacious and in a wide open area. You could look at the stars and feel the breeze from the ocean. The view of the water and the skyline topped it all off. The view of the lights when the sun finally went down was a sight to see at this concert. There were vendors with food including pizza homemade Jamaican food. The food was delicious and very inexpensive. On the stage, there were flag dancers. The dancers were waving enormous Rastafarian flags on the stage. Here were artists singing and dancing and just having a good time.

All of the songs the artists sang had a message. The artists preach their beliefs through their songs to the crowd and all who can hear them. One of the messages they sang about was love. They sang about how we should love each other and that we should not fight one another. One artist said, "Everyone on this planet should live in harmony and put downs their weapons." They want to better the world because our planet is full of violence. These people want you to take time and picture all of the things we could be doing to better this planet. This is the basis of the Bob Marley Festival. One stipulation upon entry is that you have to bring at least four cans of food. Woody Graber, who has served as PR Consultant for the Festival for several years now, said "in the last 14 years has collected over 2 million cans of food and distributed through Farm Share, a non-profit company, to the homeless and needy in South Florida and Jamaica as well as other Caribbean Nations." This shows how much these artists follow in Bob Marley's footsteps by preaching and striving for betterment of the human race.

The other message that was being portrayed was live life to the fullest and "positivity is necessity." The music they played was upbeat and easy to move to. In order to live a happy life, one must think positive and clear your mind. While I was there, my stress level decreased and felt the music. Everyone there seemed like they were enjoying themselves without a negative thought in their mind.

There was a wide variety of instruments and styles of music at the festival. The instruments included: the keyboard, the drums, guitar, bass, synthesizer, tambourine, and bongos. All of these instruments when blended together created a wide variety