I’m back and better. I know its been 5 whole weeks since my last post but things got too-too real during the last weeks of 2017. But anyway, Happy New Year! We Made it! May this year be filled with blessings and prosperity in your life. May your relationships with your friends, family, loved ones and yourself remain strong and stable.
Now let’s get back to this blogging. I honestly didn't think I was going to make it to 10 posts but, we here! And this tenth post is dedicated to someone near and dear to my heart. A Legendary artist, activists and some might say a leader in his own right, Bob Marley. Before you say it No, he is not the reason why I got locs and No, I am not becoming a fan because I have them now. But yes, there is a slight possibility that he’s the reason I adore men with locs. My fandom for Robert Nesta “Tuff Gong” Marley started almost 12 years ago at CBay Middle School all because of a guy named Mike…..Let’s go down memory lane.
See now my middle school and high school lacked a thing called “DIVERSITY”. Most of the black students grew up in the same neighborhood on the other side of the Dirty Dena. All of us like most people remained friends up until graduation. Like any group of people that share something in common, we stuck together. The unfortunate thing about growing up together was dating. It’s hard to date someone who is basically like your neighborhood brother or sister. To sum this all up, if you weren't dating someone black at CB, then there was the option of dating someone different, someone who was white.
This is actually 7th Grade but I still looked the same in 8th grade
This concept of dating in my Middle School led me to a guy named Mike. If any of my former classmates read this they will know who I am talking about, therefore I will leave his last name out of this post. Ya know, for legal reasons *Kanye Shrugs *. I met Mike in my 8th grade Pre-Algebra class. He had long brown hair that he flipped every 10 damn seconds. Like myself, Mike was athletic, tall and so cute (to me). One thing I liked most about him though, which my friends didn't understand was his mysterious aura. It wasn’t a creepy mysterious but it was the type of mysterious where if he had something to say people would stop and listen because he was so quiet. But then again that could've been from the fact that Pre-Algebra was hard as hell for all of us in that class. Honestly, I never knew Mike existed until 8th grade.
In algebra class, I sat right across from him so every morning, I would mid-key anticipate his arrival. Mike would come in, say what’s up to his buds and then proceed to his seat. Every day was distracting sitting across from this “hunk”. Let’s fast forward because I can go on for days and this is the only backstory you need about Mike.
One morning my good friend *Queen walked in with a Bob Marley shirt on, at the time I did not know anything about Bob Marley or what type of music he made. Elated with joy, Mike jumped and screamed: “*Queen I love your shirt!”. So the jealous Gemini twin came out of me and I became quite inquisitive. “Who is Bob Marley?”, “I want a Bob Marley shirt”, “Look at me Mike, I am Bob Marley!”, ya know teen things that I needed to figure out to get this fella. That’s when my search began.
I wanted to know everything about this guy Bob Marley! Although my dad was and still is a music connoisseur, he didn’t really get into Bob Marley. Reggae was not his style. So this was a solo project (at the time). I looked up every song, speech, documentary, child, and mother to learn about Robert Nesta Marley. I wanted to be prepared for the day Mike asked me about Bob Marley. As the days and months went on my desire to know about Bob Marley for the sake of dating Mike slowly swindled away, on top of that I wasn’t allowed to date at 13 years old. Getting to know more about Marley and his passion for social justice, reform and freedom were growing on me. Besides going to school waiting for Mike to talk to me about him, I was telling my friends and family about him. More songs were downloaded, t-shirts were bought with questions about where the fascination came from, and music videos were played. By the end of middle school and several attempts to dread my relaxed hair (I didn't know any better), my crush for Mike was gone but my love for Bob Marley flourished.
Highschool came around and by then I was a full-blown fan. At this point I had every shirt, my dad would by his CD’s for me and my mom, on occasion would listen to his music with me. Most of my friends also acknowledged my fandom which I appreciated. My high school was just like my middle school but more brutal. I was faced with students who liked to call you a “nigger” or “oreo”. Unfair placement in classrooms, division, and teenage woes. The more I started to see how different I was/we were the more I understood the initial message of Bob Marley’s music. Racism, prejudice, mental slavery and the yearning for equality. Bob Marley ignited the activist in me at such a young age. My drive for being treated as an equal progressed up until my Senior year.
Wanting to be in an educational environment where everyone looked like me sparked from my understanding of his messages so I chose to go to an HBCU, one of the top HBCU’s at that to attain the experience. Although my fellow classmates did not understand why I wanted to attend an institution solely created for African American students, I knew it was the best decision for me and that my classmates lacked certain knowledge towards HBCU’s or being an African American student at our school (but that was obvious).
College and Bob Marley tied together for many reasons that I will not explain on here but going away definitely tied me to his music on a more spiritual level (I once contemplated practicing certain components of Rastafari my sophomore year). I won’t even delve deep into this part but a special shout out to the tattoo I almost had, the books I read and the people who decked me out over the years with a bunch of Bob Marley gear, the poster, the Marley documentary and the “Legend” vinyl!
For the most part, Bob Marley has impacted me in so many ways that a blog wouldn’t be able to cover. But, I am glad that I can share my experience with you all. I hope you enjoyed the journey.
Stay tuned for more posts and announcements! I have some big things in store this year and I want you all to be in the know!
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