Damian Marley, Stephen Marley’s ‘Medication’ Hits 100 Million Milestone On Spotify
Damian Marley and Stephen Marley’s 2017 hit Medication surpassed 100 million plays on Spotify last week. This marks Stephen’s first song as an artist to reach this milestone and Damian’s fifth.
The latter’s top streaming tracks are Welcome To Jamrock and Road To Zion featuring Nas, with over 251 million and 126 million plays, respectively. His top featured appearances are Skillrex’s Make It Bun Dem and Bruno Mars’s Liquor Store Blues, amassing over 282 million and 148 million plays, respectively.
Stephen, who co-produced Welcome To Jamrock and Road To Zion, also produced Medication. The song is a tribute to the healing properties of marijuana, a subject close to the Marleys.
In a 2021 Forbes interview, Damian Marley emphasized the cultural and personal significance of cannabis, especially in reggae music, Rastafarian culture, and Jamaican society, and highlighted the importance of legalization efforts.
“We, as reggae musicians, as Rasta culture, as Jamaicans, we’ve always endorsed for cannabis to be legal. So that movement is very dear to us. A lot of us have been prosecuted for herb. I’ve spent time in prison for herb. So from that standpoint, it’s been very important to us for the legalization of cannabis,” he had said.
“Cannabis is a big part of Jamaican culture and a big, big part of Rastafarian culture. Being my family who we are, it has always been around in a way. My father used to smoke herb, obviously. My brothers and sisters smoke herb. And just the people around me… Nowadays it’s a big part of my life, of my day-to-day routine,” he added.
Medication appeared on Damian’s fourth album, Stony Hill, an ode to the Jamaican neighborhood he grew up in as a kid. “[Stony Hill] is in uptown Jamaica, the privileged area, so it was good. But still, I grew up exposed to my roots and my family’s tradition so I had a connection with people who came from the places where my father grew up,” Marley explained to Billboard.
The song’s music video, directed by Nick Walker, has amassed over 175 million views on YouTube.
In 2018, a remix of Medication was released with Wiz Khalifa and Ty Dolla $ign.
Stony Hill, which featured other tracks such as Living It Up, Here We Go, and Speak Life, had peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Reggae Album chart and No. 65 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart. It was the top-selling Reggae album of 2017, and it went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album.
As of 2023, Stony Hill has sold 167,000 units in the United States (including 27,000 copies in pure albums), according to data provided to DancehallMag from Billboard’s sales tracker, Luminate.
Stephen and Damian have also appeared together on several other tracks, including Bongo Nyah with Spragga Benz, Jah Army with Buju Banton, The Mission, Tight Ship, Cast The First Stone, The Traffic Jam, No No No with Eve, Grown & Sexy, Perfect Picture, All Night, and Strike Hard.
In February and March 2024, the brothers will launch their joint “Traffic Jam Tour” across North America.
The 18-date tour begins February 16 and features 15 dates produced by Live Nation, with stops including Las Vegas, NV; Seattle, WA; Vancouver, BC; Boston, MA; Brooklyn, NY; Toronto, ON; and more before concluding at Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, IL, on March 30.
Additionally, three festival dates complete the outing, including CaliVibes Fest, Lake Tahoe Reggae Festival, and Reggae Rise Up Florida.