I believe there’s a great divide in music as an artistic medium. There’s artists who use music as a basic formula to express an agenda, to state a point, more than anything. This inevitably shifts the focus of the musician towards the lyrical content, while the sonic qualities remain on the side. On the other hand, there are the artists who romanticize the medium itself, seeing how far they can push the boundaries of music itself; these artists are the pioneers of new aural qualities and trends. Yet, I would say the best artists in the world - those that are immortalized - always were able to find the balance between these two worlds.
One of the few exceptions is Bob Marley. Marley is an interesting case because his music undoubtedly leans towards the first scenario explained - he used his music to express his Rastafarian ideals of love, peace, harmony. And while he was the biggest figure in the Reggae world, his music always remained simple. Marley’s reggae never explored many sonic environments and trends, because it didn’t need to. Bob Marley used Reggae simply as a template to express his ideals. This is why, I believe, Marley is so genius. One thing is being able to find a balance between lyrical and musical content, but another is completely evolving one while the other remains stagnant - being able to remain relevant while only using one of those traits is extremely difficult. There are very few artists that have ever done that in history to the extent that Marley did, perhaps Bob Dylan is one.
At the end of the day, despite the sonic simplicity of his music, his heavy lyrical content perfectly balances the laid-back directness of his Reggae music, in a way that only Reggae as a genre allows. Marley will continue to entertain, please, and chill-out listeners, and this feeling that his art evokes is what further immortalizes his music; it’s what makes Bob Marley, BOB MARLEY.
