Bob Marley, in full Robert Nesta Marley, (born February 6, 1945, Nine Miles, St. Ann, Jamaica—died May 11, 1981, Miami, Florida, U.S.), Jamaican singer-songwriter whose thoughtful ongoing distillation of early ska, rock steady, and reggae musical forms blossomed in the 1970s into an electrifying rock-influenced hybrid that made him an international superstar.

Marley-whose parents were Norval Sinclair Marley, a white rural overseer, and the former Cedella Malcolm, the Black daughter of a local custos (respected backwoods squire)—would forever remain the unique product of parallel worlds. His poetic worldview was shaped by the countryside, his music by the tough West Kingston ghetto streets. Marley’s maternal grandfather was not just a prosperous farmer but also a bush doctor adept at the mysticism-steeped herbal healing that guaranteed respect in Jamaica’s remote hill country. As a child, Marley was known for his shy aloofness, his startling stare, and his penchant for palm reading. Virtually kidnapped by his absentee father (who had been disinherited by his own prominent family for marrying a Black woman), the preadolescent Marley was taken to live with an elderly woman in Kingston until a family friend rediscovered the boy by chance and returned him to Nine Miles.