Published Thursday, May 18th, 2007

Review of Stephen Marley's Performance

At 10pm on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 West Indian Times arrived at 'The Norva' in Norfolk, VA to cover the Stephen Marley feat. Damian Marley show.   It was a sold out show and filled to capacity with what seemed to be a sea of Caucasian Americans.  King Walker of Lionheart Sound along with Killa Khan & Gary Famous of Love People sound were keeping the crowd happy with their early juggling and it felt as though this were going to be a show filled with 'One Love'.   At approximately 10.15pm Stephen Marley's band was introduced and two back up singers burst onto the stage with high energy.  Stephen came onto the stage and the entire building went wild, he performed tracks from his latest album 'Mind Control' as well as some of his father's tracks such as 'No Woman No Cry', 'Catch A Fire' and 'Buffalo Soldier'.  Stephen was awesome and is truly a great performer, unfortunately West Indian Times did not stay past 11pm at the venue so we are unable to bring you any more details relating to the show.  However,  we did learn first hand what type of people the Marley's are surrounded by. 

Media Doing Their Job

Nuff respect goes out to the venue, The Norva, for allowing West Indian Times photo passes and back stage access so that we as media personnel could do our work to share photos and our review with the world.  However, we are baffled by the behavior of the Marley's road manager. 

Mr. Cham, Natalie and myself  (Lady Cham) were back stage, we had taken a few shots from the front of the stage and were backstage taking a few shots of the band from the side of the stage when the road manager named 'Sky High' came up to me and said rudely "you can't take no pictures" and then he abruptly said we could not be backstage.  I informed him that we were West Indian Times and we were covering the event.  I showed him my photo pass and press pass and he said we could not take any more pictures until the last song, we were allowed to only take photos of the first 3 songs and the last song.  This seemed very strange as there were approximately a thousand people in the venue taking photos constantly and some patrons were even video taping the show.   I decided to go and take a few shots from the VIP section upstairs and after about 10 minutes I saw the same road manager and a few others in the Marley camp pointing up to me and telling security to come and deal with me.  5 minutes later 2 of The Norva's security came up and asked if I had my photo pass and I showed it to them.  They then asked if I had my VIP pass and I showed it to them.  They then told me that they did not mind but the Marley's road manager did not want me to take any more photos and if I did he may order them to have me leave the building.  I told them that was fine.  At this point I had taken enough and did not want to cover the event any further.  I went downstairs and as I went backstage there was the road manager again.  I am not the type of person to hold my tongue so I asked him why we could not take photos.  He informed me that no press is allowed photos of anything other than the first 3 songs and I informed him that we covered the Damian show at The Norva and took photos of the whole show.   He looked at me and said "nuttin nuh go so, you hide an do that, yes ah dat you do, you hide an do that.'  I told him I was out in the open and the pictures were online and he was still belligerent so I decided to go home and go to my bed.  I began to put on my coat to leave when he again approached me and this time he  advised me that I could take a photo of Stephen and Damian together when they hit the stage.  I could not believe his audacity, did he really believe we needed the bone he was throwing?  It was not the fact that they were giving us a hard time because people have their rules and regulations which we can accept, however, manners becomes even a dog.  We left.

Are The Marley's Showing Rasta Love?

For years I have heard people talk about the Marley's in a negative fashion, we have all heard people speak and say that the only reason the Marley children get by is because their father was Bob.  We hear that they believe they are better than anyone else.  We hear that they only cater to White media and White people.  Why do we hear these things?  And are they true?  From our experience with the Marley's (not Stephen or Damian directly) we know that their camp is not filled with  the Rasta love that Bob preached about.  How can you be singing 'One Love' and have angry people surrounding you?  The Marley men must know who they are surrounded by, do they condone this behavior?   Is this the reason why Jamaicans do not rate them?  You can sing about Jamrock and One Love all day long but I know from being a Jamaican by blood that you can't fool us, not for a second.   Sharing the truth may hurt, but it's not a crime.

Words taken from the track 'Small Axe' sung by Bob Marley

Why boasteth thyself oh, evil men
Playing smart and not being clever?
I said, you're working iniquity
To achieve vanity (if a-so a-so)
But the goodness of Jah, Jah
I-dureth for-I-ver