Bob Marley smokin some dope

Damn I'm gonna rant at yall now. I really get pissed off at places like Hot Topic and Spencer's Gifts and any place like that that has a million and one products showing Bob Marley smoking a spliff. Not that I have a problem with that sometimes, it's just that it pisses me off how most people think that Marley was all about the ganja and nothing else. They don't get the chance to listen to his real message becasue every pic people see of him he has a fat cone in his mouth. People tell me that he performed the song 'smoke two joints' and that he is the weed king and smoked pounds of weed and all that when they've never heard any songs like 'zimbabwe', or 'war' or 'concrete jungle' or any of his hard hitting songs that are NOT about ganja (even though his ganja-related songs are a minority)

And besides, it's mostly Rita Marley's fault with her Rasta-chic line of clothes, 'Zion Rootswear' bullshit. It also upsets me how every skateboard, shoe, and clothes company has to have a line of red/yellow/green 'rasta cool' stuff. I went into Journey's and every other shoe it seemed like was rasta colors. All leather too! what a contradiction.

Anyways the point is that the message that Bob Marley fought for is being distorted by commercial interests. He wouldn't have wanted his face printed on teeshirts with a weed leaf halo. pshhhh..and the sacred colors that many RastafarIans hold dear is being captured by the capitalist pigs that run this country. It seems that nothing is sacred anymore. The Rasta colors are almost as commercial as the christian cross is nowdays.

Anybody else agree with me? I love to show my support for Marley's music and the RastafarIan culture in general, but I'm at a loss because I feel like a tool; like every suburban kid out there that think they know what Marley was about and wants to buy dope off me cuz I'm wearing a Marley shirt. I wanna get rid of mine actually, I'm tired of the ignorant stipulations placed on me by people who don't understand what it's about. Eh, im done. Tell me what you think.

/rant

 

Couldn't have said it better. It's more of a status symbol than anything.

 

i was just thinking the exact same thing the other day. i have this marley remix type cd called chant down babylon and on like every page of the cd booklet it has a ganja leaf. it pisses me off, cause i know this is not how he would have wanted to be percieved.

 

^ haha, good cd though. lol ^

 

i don't really think there is such a thing as a 'true' Rastafarian anymore. i mean, Hallie Sellesie (sp?) is dead, so you know that basically their whole dogma was wrong. It's like Che, the basic ideas are gone, but the image lives on (perhaps because we connect more to the image than to the message)
neways, i'm more pissed off about hot topic. i think it's the greatest example of how fucked up we are as a society. you can't really rebel against a consumer-driven society by shopping at the mall.

 

i'd want my face printed on a t-shirt with a weed leaf halo. that'd be the shit

 

bob marley is one of my favorite singers.
ever since i was little, i can remember belting out to "buffalo soldier".
and when i'm high, "stir it up" does some crazy shit to my head.

i mean, i love to smoke pot and listen to some marley while doing so.
i love his style of reggae and mixing it with pot causes it to sound sooo pleasing

but i can see where you're coming from with the whol capitalism swallowing down marley whole at the hands of rita trying to make a buck here and there.
we all know that marley was stoned a good percentage of his life
so why "commercialize" something that is what you would call "common knowledge".
for anyone with a brain that can handle an argumentative two cents.

but yeah, it pisses me off bc it seems to portray him as just a stoner.
instead of an extraordinary revolutionist.
and he was, and my favorite example of this, is "redemption song".

praise him for what he is.
and not for your own personal self-worth.

i do own a "rastafari" sweatband, though.
i purchased it from a head shop on the beach.
to show that i admire bob marley.

but we can all admit:
it'd be really sweet to smoke a blunt with that man, though, you know

 

i can see more damian marley smoking shit cause thats like what he stands for. he has many many songs dedicated especially to weed, bob, not so much.

 

Super true, bro. But also, Smoke Two Joints was never done by Marley. It was 'The Toyes'.

 

ye i know vactom. some dude let me listen to his 'bob marley' ringtone this weekend. it was sublime version.

to hippie i am: yea, I have a few items with the colors, but I don't own rasta colored (leather) shoes, rasta shoelaces, Bob shirt, rasta colored armbands and stuff... Like I see some people wear. You know, goofy looking suburban kids trying to rebel against the man. Those people are the main offenders.

gaum: I agree. but Damian Marley...he's a joke. He sings about RastafarI in some songs and others he talks about shooting people and stuff like that. Kind of a conflicting message.

 

tru tru

 

Its fucked up i know, how the rastafari movement has been commercialized. I fucking hate all that skate shit and the kids who wear it. But at any rate, bob did love the herb, it wasn't all about it, by far it wasn't. But you have to admit, that guy smoked some mad green

 

yeah man it's really lame how america sees money when we see love and music. i think you can see that constant entrepenuer attitude in everything now man. it sucks to live in america because we have no history, so we try to steal everyone elses. it takes away how special those things were man.

 

So do you hate me now because i own a pair of Red/yellow/green Etnies with the lion of judah on them? *rollseyes*

 

no, i hate you because you dropped 60 dollars on a pair of fucking shoes so you could be trendy

 

Didn't Bob Marley have like 14 kids.
if i had a dead husband and 14 kids to raise you'd be damn sure i cashed in every way possible.
it's easy to bemoan commercialization when you have never had the opportunity to "sell out."

 

eugene: they weren't all by the same woman. Rita only started the company a few years ago. When they were all adults with (most of them) musical careers.

Jack Straw: i concur with you fully


TheRocking: culture appropriation=money these days. Everybody wants to cash out. And we're all stuck climbing the ladder...

 

Owned.

This is too true.

 

shit man, all sorts of people are killing other people, it doesnt make it right

 

???
seriuosly.
???

neways. i doubt any of you out there would turn down the oppurtunity to make millions of dollars simply by siging on the dotted line. And it's not like it's 'selling out' a movement, simply because the movement was, well, wrong.
(how many of you out there so pissed about this rasta-smoking-weed stereotype actually know the tenets of rastafarianism.)