His career began with a letter to God, written in song, addressed to his late father.
The song in question: “Dear Dad,” one of the first songs Ky-Mani Marley wrote.
“Dear Dad, I didn’t really know you / Sometimes I sit down and wonder and it makes me blue,” Marley sings in a voice more searching than sad. “But there’s a memory that stays behind my mind / And that memory made me think of you all the time.”
The father, of course, is reggae legend Bob Marley, a song titan and a staple of the record machine wherever one can be found.
Ky-Mani, the 10th of 11 children recognized on Bob Marley’s official website, was only 5 years old when his father died in 1981 of cancer at the age of 36.
“I have a memory of my father,” the 46-year-old recalls in a recent phone interview, “just of being in the field, with him and my older brother Stephen. I keep that fond memory in my heart.”
This memory continues to inform the artist that Ky-Mani has become.
This weekend, it’s titled Reggae in the Desert, the all-day Caribbean festival that returns to the Clark County Amphitheater after a two-year pandemic break.
Marley will headline an extensive lineup that also includes “Electric Boogie” queen Marcia Griffiths, perhaps the most influential female reggae performer, former Black Uhuru singer Don Carlos, dancehall singjay Mr. Vegas, the roots reggae life The Wailing Souls and more.
For Marley, everything can be traced back to a single song, really.
“When I wrote‘ Dear Dad ’and saw the reaction I received from people and how it touched them, I told a part of my personal story,” he recalls, “I knew there was a bit of magic in the music. “.
A reluctant musician
Bob Marley used to say that if you really wanted to meet him, you would play a football game — or football, as we call it on these shores — with him and his band.
Growing up, Ky-Mani was equally obsessed with sports.
Yes, the music was in my blood.
No, that was not what he thought he would do with his life.
I wanted to be an athlete.
“Music was always inside me, but it wasn’t my focus,” he explains. “As a child, in high school and high school, he played the trumpet on the school side; I took piano lessons here and there.
“I was always hooked on music in some way,” he continues, “but being an artist wasn’t my goal. I tried more to play football, American football, and football as the world knows it. “
But one day, a friend of his who had a sound system in Marley’s native Jamaica came to him with an unexpected request.
“With sound systems, they tend to get what they call‘ dubbing plates ’or‘ specials ’from artists, which is a song tailored to your sound,” Marley says. “So a friend of mine said he wanted me to give him a dubbing plate, and I said,‘ I don’t sing. It’s not what I do. And he says, ‘It doesn’t matter; You’re Bob’s son, so give me one anyway. ‘
During the recording session, Marley caught the ear of a producer who worked with her father in his day.
“He says,‘ Oh man, you have a nice tone. You should come to the studio once, ”Marley recalls.
About three weeks later, he did.
An artist was born.
All the sensations
When she was 9, Ky-Mani moved to Miami with her mother, Anita Belnavis, a Jamaican table tennis champion.
One of your first culture clashes?
The amplitude of American waves.
“I remember at that time in Jamaica we only had one radio station,” Marley says. “When I got here, my mom bought me a boombox. I plugged it in and tuned in to the first radio station I found. I thought this was also the only radio station in the United States, not knowing that maybe There were hundreds more. I thought, ‘This is the only radio station, because we only had one in Jamaica.’ “
The format of this station: soft rock.
That’s right, the future headliner of reggae cut his teeth in the realm of Air Supply and Peter Cetera.
Then his mother bought him his first record, a Run-DMC record.
“I fell in love with hip-hop,” Marley says. “For me, just being a music lover and a music student, I gravitated to all these different feelings.”
You can hear it on Marley’s discography, which spans seven studio albums beginning with 1996’s “Like Father Like Son”.
Marley’s voice ranges from butter to grandiloquence, her catalog initially rooted in traditional reggae but has expanded to include hip-hop, especially on 2007’s “Radio”, as well as R&B, pop rock and far more.
Although it’s been six years since he last released an album, Marley notes that he’s sitting on a lot of material that reflects that range, some of which he intends to release on Reggae in the Desert.
“I have so much music recorded that it hasn’t been released yet,” he says. “I have so many vibrations of singer-songwriter, guitar, folk and soft rock that the world has not yet heard. This will come soon.
“In fact,” he continues, “in the next show, we’ll play some different sensations and see what the audience thinks.”
Desert reggae is posed with good vibes: after a two-year layoff, expect those vibes to amplify in unison with the instruments on stage.
“I’m glad we’re back and the live music is coming out again, people are coming back together and it’s just sharing that experience and that vibe,” Marley says. “I think over the years, we had (shows) so often that we took it for granted. And losing that for two years and being able to come back and be around good music and good people, you certainly see the appreciation.
“You can feel that energy,” he adds, “and love in the air.”
Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @ jbracelin76 on Instagram
