7 Facts about Bob Marley

Bob Marley was a white Jamaican originally from Sussex, England, whose family claimed Syrian Jewish origins.

Marley was named Nesta Robert Marley.

A Jamaican immigration official suggested to Bob’s mom that “Nesta” sounded too much like a girl’s name. So they switched his name to Robert Nesta Marley

As a little kid, Bob had a knack for deeply spooking people by successfully predicting their futures by reading their palms. At seven, having just returned to his rural village after a year spent living in the ghettos of Kingston (Jamaica’s capital), he declared that from then on he would cease to read palms. His new destiny, he said, was to become a singer. For the rest of his life, whenever someone who knew him back when asked him to read their palms, he resolutely refused.

In 1955, when Bob Marley was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at the age of 70.

Marley and Neville Livingston (later known as Bunny Wailer) had been childhood friends in Nine Mile.

In 1963, Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith were called The Teenagers.