‘One Love’: walking in the footsteps of Bob Marley in Kingston, Jamaica

An obvious place to start is at the Bob Marley Museum at 56 Hope Road, where Marley lived from 1975 until his untimely death from cancer aged 36 in 1981. He acquired the property from Blackwell as part of his contract negotiation for Bob Marley and the Wailers’ seventh studio album ‘Natty Dread’, vowing to ‘bring the ghetto uptown’. And bring it uptown he did.

He welcomed a rainbow of characters to the house, playing football with local Trench Town kids and hosting celebrities such as the Jackson 5. Today, tour guides such as Ricky, who plays Marley’s childhood mentor Vincent ‘Tato’ Ford in ‘One Love’, will show you around. You’ll get to see the recording studio where Marley’s last three albums were recorded, his prized Gibson guitar and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Before entering his bedroom, Ricky warns us not to look directly at the bed: ‘It fertile ground. Brother had 12 kids.’ Most poignantly, you’ll lay eyes on the bullet hole left by gunmen who tried to assassinate Marley in 1976 because of his anti-violence beliefs.

Today, Marley Natural, a cannabis dispensary, smoke house and lounge, sits at the back of the property. You can stock up on locally-grown ganja as well as herb paraphernalia there. Market stalls also pop up on the grounds for special occasions like Marley’s birthday. Small businesses including Sista Love Wines sell cannabis-infused wine alongside food traders cooking jerk chicken and makers flogging handmade bags and accessories. Some unique items I found for sale included a book titled ‘Overcoming an Angry Vagina’ and earrings with ‘Melanin Poppin’ emblazoned on the front.

The inner-city borough of Trench Town is known as the birthplace of reggae. Marley moved to Trench Town with his mother and siblings when he was nine. It was in a 1950s tenement block that he met Tata, a community leader and the lyricist credited with writing one of Marley’s most popular songs, ‘No Woman, No Cry’. It's also where he first picked up the guitar and wrote ‘Is This Love’ in an attempt to woo his then-girlfriend Rita. It worked. The single bed of which he sings – ‘With a roof right over our heads, we’ll share the shelter of my single bed’ – is where their first son, Ziggy, was conceived and born. 

The Trench Town Culture Yard Museum is now a National Heritage Site owned and operated by neighbourhood residents. They lead tours around the town, showing tourists Marley’s home as well as the remains of the originally yellow, now rust-ridden Volkswagen he’d drive to and from gigs.

Tuff Gong International, formerly Federation Records, was the first recording studio in Jamaica. It’s here that Marley – who went on to sell more than 75 million records – recorded his first single, ‘Judge Not’, in 1962, as well as many other inescapable classics including ‘Redemption Song’, ‘Buffalo Soldier’ and ‘Could You Be Loved’. Marley’s vow to own the studio never came to pass in his lifetime. However in 1981, after his death, Rita bought the site to create the modern-day Tuff Gong.

It’s still a working studio, home to a mastering room, wholesale record shop and vinyl factory. During your visit you can hop on board Ride Natty Ride, another of Marley’s transport trucks, and record a karaoke version of either ‘One Love’ or ‘Three Little Birds’. The final results get airdropped to your phone for posterity. Luckily, my Google phone put paid to that idea, sparing the eardrums of any future grandkids or record-label heads silly enough to open an email with the subject line ‘Jessica Phillips and the I Threes.’

Originally called Thomas Beach, this hidden gem in Bull Bay, St Andrew, is where Marley would come to relax, run and lean into his Rastafarian faith. The black-sand fishermen’s beach was home to one of the earliest Rastafari communities in Jamaica, and remains a peaceful spot to visit, as the crowds tend to flock to the golden sands of Fort Clarence or Breakwater Park.

In the last year, the beach has found itself at risk of privatisation. There have been bids made to fold it into a £160 million luxury resort. But the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JABBEM) has joined forces with the Marley family to ensure the site’s Rastafarian heritage is preserved and the beach remains accessible to locals.

To experience the beach Bob-style, enlist the expertise of local Rasta chefs, Kharief and Gavin from vegan kitchen Eatopia, who will whip you up a meal under the handmade wood cabanas, which can be rented for 500 Jamaican dollars an hour. We tucked into fried cauliflower, yam ragu with potatoes and salad, slurping on leaf-of-life, cucumber and lemongrass juice as reggae music played in the background – a real highlight of my trip.

Jamaica is home to more than 120 waterfalls, but Cane River Falls, where Marley would exercise and recharge, was his favourite. He sang about the spot on his ‘Confrontation’ album in the song ‘Trench Town’: ‘Up a Cane River to wash my dread, upon a rock I rest my head. There I vision through the seas of oppression, oh woah! Don’t make my life a prison.’

A privately-owned attraction, costing J$500 for adults and J$300 for children, the falls are accessed by descending 100 steps. You weave in and out of caves and scenic vantage points before turning right at a yellow-and-red engraving of Marley’s face. During my visit, local boys cannonballed into the plunge pool and I witnessed romance blossoming under the waterfall. Over the thrashing of the water, I heard aqua Romeo tell wet-look Juliet to ‘ask the universe for what you want’. I hope she asked for Coachella tickets.

Believe it or not, but Marley owes a lot to the local nuns of Kingston. Travelling over in 1880 from Bermondsey in London to set up Alpha Boys’ School, a boarding school for inner-city boys, they championed musical talent, starting a music programme in 1892. One rule-breaking nun, Sister Ignatius, who is often referred to as ‘the Mother Theresa of reggae’, was one of the first people in Jamaica to own a sound system. It was on that very sound system that reggae artist and dancehall DJ Yellowman got his start. Marley also came calling in search of a horn band in the ’70s. A trio made up of Vin Gordon on trombone, Glen DaCosta on saxophone, and David Madden on trumpet performed on his albums ‘Exodus’ and ‘Kaya’.

These days, Alpha is a non-profit vocational school, training at-risk inner-city kids in barbering, carpentry, screen printing and music performance. Hour-long musical history tours run every Friday at 11am, and you can also book in a jammin’ session with Alpha alumni. During our visit, one current student was rizz personified, leading the session with charm and confidence, never once taking off his sunglasses or breaking a sweat while playing the whole gamut of instruments at his disposal. On our way out, he made sure to play us his demo. That kid is going places.

In Jamaica, Marley isn’t viewed as a peer of musical contemporaries like The Bee Gees or Elton John – instead, he’s up there with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr and Marcus Garvey. Which makes sense, given that Garvey inspired many of Marley’s lyrics.

Internationally, Garvey can be a divisive political figure – but at home, he is sanctified as Jamaica’s first national hero. He is credited with launching the People's Political Party (PPP) and creating the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIAACL), the world’s largest Black organisation.

Garvey’s positive view of Blackness and political agency resonated with Marley, inspiring many of his lyrics in songs such as ‘So Much to Say’ and ‘Get Up, Stand Up’. Most famously, Marley paraphrased one of Garvey’s 1937 speeches in ‘Redemption Song’ with the words ‘emancipate yourselves from mental slavery’.

At The Legacy of Marcus Garvey museum, which costs J$600 and J$200, visitors are given the opportunity to see Garvey’s cane, listen to the only audio recording of his voice and hear about how his philosophy impacts many modern-day Jamaicans.

Marley’s epic 1978 ‘One Love’ concert was Jamaica’s answer to Woodstock. In the midst of a bloody political civil war which saw street gangs bring gun battles to Kingston, Marley brought party rivals Michael Manley and Edward Seaga on stage during his performance of ‘Jammin’’, joining their hands to symbolise peace and unity.

Nowadays, the 35,000-capacity stadium is mainly used for football matches and Jamaica's athletics team. It also hosts global music acts, including Burna Boy. Pop by for the Independence Day parade on August 6 or book in to see local schools compete in track and field championships which take place throughout the year. These kids are known to sprint at Olympic speed and break world records before their lunch break. Catch them now while you can still afford tickets.

Jessica Phillips was hosted by The Jamaica Tourist Board, flew with British Airways and stayed at Rok Hotel Kingston. For information on our policies around editorial independence, reviews and recommendations, see our editorial guidelines.