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Bob Marley: A National Hero’s Hero

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rihanna
Rihanna

“Bob Marley is my HERO #thatisall,” Rihanna tweeted one afternoon back in 2012.

Now a National Hero herself, the Rude Boy singer-turned-Billionaire CEO has long claimed the late Reggae King as a creative influence, and while their careers span different eras, their larger-than-life ethos far exceeds studio efforts—each is undeniably a global brand with an innate sense of cool, confidence and style.

In a VLAD TV interview earlier this year, LA Reid (the legendary Def Jam label head who signed the Barbados singer at 17) sent tongues wagging when he said Rihanna had surpassed Marley in earnings and influence. Though flattering, it’s unlikely Rih’s rise has dimmed her adulation for the immortal icon, which has manifested in many facets of her life, from aesthetics to album concepts, and more. 

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Bob Marley

From Bob Marley’s visage in the American Oxygen (2015) video to a homage paying rasta-tam-and-Tims outfit in Ocean’s 8, DancehallMag salutes Rihanna’s Bob Marley superfan moments dating back to the days when the chanteuse ruled the charts.

1. Bob Marley Shrine

Why settle for an oversized portrait when you can dedicate an entire room to your favorite musician? You can, if you’re Rihanna.

“He’s one of my favourite artists of all time – he really paved the way for every other artist out of the Caribbean,” the Rehab singer reportedly told the Sun in 2010. The spacious, “loungey room” in her then-new L.A. mansion featured red, gold & green wall decor, a black and white painting of the Gong, gun-shaped chandeliers, lyric books and other memorabilia, plus plenty of incense to invoke the Gong’s presence.

2. Please Don’t Stop The Music

Rihanna has paid tribute to Bob Marley in song countless times, as part of her own live sets or with all-star ensembles. “I’m gonna sound like a real tourist when I tell you my top Bob songs,” Rihanna told Vogue in 2018, before naming Three Little Birds, No Woman, No Cry, and Redemption Song.  According to Rolling Stone, she famously covered the latter for Haiti Relief on The Oprah Winfrey Show following 2010’s devastating earthquake, and the acoustic anthem has since been included in her concert sets, in addition to Is This Love. 

Rihanna, who had also covered Redemption Song for Yahoo! in 2006, told Oprah, “I feel the people of Haiti need to hear something inspiring. This song, for me, any time there was a difficult situation, I always listened to this song. It’s so liberating.”

Here’s one of her live covers of Is This Love.

Rihanna was the only female star in the 2013 Grammy Awards’ Bob Marley tribute, performing alongside Sting, Bruno Mars, and the Marley Brothers (Ziggy & Damian), and closing out with the rhythmic highlight, Could You Be Loved. 

A year later, Rih was still keeping time with the Reggae King. The starlet opted for a Bob Marley crop top when she attended singer Grimes’ 2014 pre-Grammys concert. 

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Katy Perry, Grimes and Rihanna

3. The Gong’s Earthstrong  

Rihanna rarely misses a chance to send birthday wishes to her fellow February-born idol. Per HotNewHipHop, Rihanna hailed “the birthday bwoy,” in a brief caption earlier this year, adding the all-caps hashtag #LEGEND below the black and white photo of a teenage Marley.

A decade earlier, Rih had tweeted a much longer Earthstrong tribute.

“Bob we miss & LOVE u! U made this lil journey of mine possible,” she wrote. “As a girl from a small island under the sun, I owe it to you for breaking MAJAH barriers for us. BOB MARLEY! One love to you always! It’s like u never left!” 

4. “Keep It White & Black…”

Bob Marley’s black and white stills are clearly among the Fenty boss’ favourites. Back in 2017, she donned black and white PUMA for a private viewing of award-winning photographer David Burnett’s “compelling and incomparably candid” Marley collection.

Rih has been keen on Marley’s moments in monochrome long before, however.

For Thanksgiving 2014, Rihanna posed in overalls next to a framed photo of the Gong, her bright lipstick and sweatshirt providing perfect red accents, which Bob’s daughter Cedella recently shared, with thanks.

Serving style is Rihanna’s stock-in-trade, and Marley is as much an influence on her songs as her style. From Rasta coloured couture to chunky faux locs, these next few moments prove the Stay singer is indebted to the Gong in more ways than one. 

5. “Dreadlock Rasta”

When Rihanna debuted her waist-length faux locs in 2016, her Instagram caption was the simple, stylised title of her favourite Marley track: “buffalo $oldier.”

For her role as Nine Ball in Ocean’s 8, the versatile Bajan beauty went all out in the name of representation, opting to keep her accent and specifically requesting the dreadlocked hairdo.  

“She wasn’t just going to be some American girl in this movie,” Rih’s longtime hairstylist, Yusef Williams, told Refinery29.  “Nine Ball is still a Caribbean girl that just happens to be in America.”

Like Marley leveraging his influence for peace in 1976, Rihanna used her star power to break barriers, giving global audiences a glamourous reminder of her ties to her Caribbean culture.

6. Dress To Impress 

As Boomshots reported, Rihanna stole the show in a custom Adam Selman Bob Marley T-shirt dress during her 2012 Saturday Night Live performance where she performed Stay.

The form-fitting, super edgy look was later selected for display at Opening Ceremony’s RIHtrospective: Seven Rihanna Fashion Moments exhibit in 2013 in New York City.

For her 2016 hit Work with Drake, (currently at 1.2B Youtube views), Rihanna channeled her creative spirit into her outfit, an ensemble Billboard dubbed a “Rastafarian-hued, slinky net dress along with a matching crocheted bikini by Tommy Hilfger.”

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It’s excessive by resort-wear standards, but enough of a fashion statement that Rih rocked it for most of the reel.

7. Hotstepper

Rihanna may be famous for walking on grates in high heels, but she’s just as meticulous about dressing down. The Talk That Talk singer made quite the statement when she stepped out in Soho four years ago wearing custom Bob Marley Timberland boots. Rih’s red, yellow and green kicks were emblazoned with Marley’s cover art photo from his posthumous compilation album, Rebel Music, as well as the Lion of Judah and a large black star. 

The PUMA/Manolo Blahnik shoe designer also added a pot leaf and Puma logo to top off her fangirl footwear.  “Even in the dead of winter, Rihanna brings the island vibes to the rest of the world,” Vogue wrote.

8. Island Gal 

Before board meetings and a billionaire portfolio swept her away from the spotlight, Rih spent much of her time in swimwear, regularly gracing glistening shores from Hawaii to her favorite vacation spot—her island home, Barbados. On one such occasion in 2011, Rih rocked an orange one-piece bearing Bob’s likeness that landed across several outlets including GQ.

The Caribbean queen also opted for a Bob Marley ‘One Love’ tee instead of her usual stylish cover-ups while chilling in St. Tropez later that year. 

9. R9 

Rihanna’s greatest superfan moment, however, is yet to materialize—though years in the making. Rih’s long-awaited follow-up to 2016’s record-breaking ANTI is a “Marley inspired” reggae album, dubbed R9 by her ardent (read: patient) fanbase, the Navy. In 2018, Rihanna told Vogue that the album would feature the likes of Jamaican-born record producer Supa Dups, who has worked with dancehall legends like Sean Paul and Beenie Man, as well as her ex-boyfriend Drake on the smash hit, Controlla.

Fans have since speculated as to the project’s sonic direction, whether a soca anthem would be among the gems given her Crop Over bias, or if previous dub-heavy material such as Man Down and No Love Allowed would be reprised.

Anticipation remains high as the years roll by, but fans trust Rih to follow through on a project flavoured by her favourite musician. In a 2019 update, Rihanna again told Vogue “I like to look at it as a reggae-infused album. It’s not gonna be typical of what you know as reggae. But you’re going to feel the elements in all of the tracks.” 

“Reggae always feels right to me. It’s in my blood. It doesn’t matter how far or long removed I am from that culture, or my environment that I grew up in; it never leaves. It’s always the same high. Even though I’ve explored other genres of music, it was time to go back to something that I haven’t really homed in on completely for a body of work,” she continued.

10. #RihannaIsJamaican  

No, Rihanna isn’t Jamaican.

Her unmistakable fondness for the Gong and brand Jamaica, however, amplified a hilarious Twitter episode in 2019. The #RihannaIsJamaican hashtag began as a dig at the Jamaican dollar and quickly escalated to a witty heist of the Bajan crown jewel.

‘Kidnapping Rihanna’s nationality’ proved all too easy thanks to Photoshop, and the ‘receipts’ topped Trending for days, stirring up headlines all the way to Canada. Politicians, media outlets (from Paper to PopBuzz), even the U.S. Embassy chimed in on the point-scoring. 

Though this moment wasn’t entirely Riri’s doing, it comically coincided with her nods to the island over the years.

Tweets pegging Rihanna as one of Marley’s many children and citing the use of “her Patois dialect” in naming her first single Pon de Replay were among the most memorable.

https://twitter.com/IAMDJLIVE/status/1182106111056449536