Ziggy Marley was just eight years old when her mother and father - reggae legend Bob Marley - were shot dead in an attempt to kill her inside their home in Kingston, Jamaica. But he remembers it like yesterday.
"The officers came for us children in the middle of the night and took us to a secret hide in the mountains - no one knew what was going on. It was scary but it was exciting," he says.
However just two days later, on December 5, 1976, Bob Marley insisted on playing the Jamaica Smile Festival at Kingston National Heroes Park, as planned - though he had gunshot wounds to the arm and chest. The festival was seen as a cry for peace in the face of violence and political unrest in Jamaica, with 80,000 people watching Marley perform traditional songs including Get Up Stand Up.
For reggae fans it is a heroic thing, though Ziggy insists his mother, who was shot in the head that night, deserves the same praise as the father. "He still showed up for the show, the same as him. I'm proud of my dad and mom because there's a team work going on between them. Bob wouldn't be Bob without Rita, you know what I mean?"
Now 53, Ziggy talks to the Overseer on the eve of a new show about his father's life and influence to open at the Saatchi Gallery in London next month.
It is the latest celebration of the singer who four decades after his death from cancer, the 36-year-old, is still one of the best-selling artists in the world. His best-selling album after his death, Legend, released in 1984, has spent more than 950 weeks in the list of 100 best UK songs and has sold over 25m copies worldwide.
The exhibition - which includes Legend's massive vinyl installation - is set as a "multi-sensory experience" with multiple rooms and spaces, each highlighting different aspects of Marley's life. One room, for example, is designed as a jungle with Jamaican sounds and scents, the theme of many songs.
Elsewhere, they have redesigned the authentic urban landscape with great art installations and there is even a joke behind the Bob Marley and Wailers concert platform. The silent disco, which they call Soul Shakedown Studio, invites guests to wear headphones and attend a reggae dance party.
But the main feature of the show is undoubtedly a collection of never-before-seen pictures of Marley himself.
Ziggy explains that they were discovered in the storage room of photographer Jean Bernard Sohiez, who passed away last year and whose dozens of photos appear to have been taken one day in Kingston, more or less than a year before Marley's death.
It was an unspecified shot, some of which caught the soccer star, which he said was his biggest passion after music.
"She was tough," admits Ziggy. "It was a big part of his life, and my life as a kid around him, but it wasn't just about football - he loved all sports. He loved boxing, running, table tennis, he was an athlete."
At one point he came to Ziggy's elementary school and played against his teammates, he says, adding: "He was fast and had a good kick." He laughs out loud though with the idea that his father's game was at a professional level, as friends who played with him have claimed.
"That was his expectation!" he laughs.
He thinks playing football was Marley's way of reducing some of the pressures of his daily life. His father needed it all the time, he says, and sometimes it felt like everyone wanted his own piece.
"Football helped him keep his mind free," he says.
Frustrated with the gunfire at his home, Marley moved to London for a walk, living in the quiet 42 Oakley Street area of Chelsea. It was there that he wrote one of his most enduring songs, Three Little Birds.
Ziggy remained in Jamaica with his other siblings (Marley had 11 adopted children) but claims he did not miss his father during the separation. Not because he did not like her, but because of necessity, she says.
“When you think back you may feel sad, but at the same time you have to do what you have to do,” he says. "I had to go to school, there were a lot of things, so keep it up."
Ziggy (nickname given to him by his father, meaning "little dick") was 12 years old when Marley died. He even performed at a funeral. And in a broad sense he "continued with it" all his adult life, carving his own niche as the best recording artist. He is an eight-time Grammy Award winner, taking the best reggae album seven times, most recently in 2017.
Ziggy has a similar Trenchtown accent to his father, although he has been living in Los Angeles with his wife Orly and four children for nearly 15 years now.
"As my father used to say, my house is in my head," he says.
He knows he will never get out of his father's shadow and admits that some people want him to be his father. There are always expectations that he will do coverage of Bob Marley songs on his live performances, but that is what he says he is most excited to do.
Sometimes he makes a tour where he sings only his father's songs.
He has no favorite, but he chooses the Song of Redemption as the song closest to his heart. It is a song that was widely played when his father died, he says, and it meant a lot to many people.
"It carries a lot of emotional connection to me."
The Bob Marley One Love Experience show started on February 2 this year - and will end on April 18 at Saatchi Gallery, London.
However just two days later, on December 5, 1976, Bob Marley insisted on playing the Jamaica Smile Festival at Kingston National Heroes Park, as planned - though he had gunshot wounds to the arm and chest. The festival was seen as a cry for peace in the face of violence and political unrest in Jamaica, with 80,000 people watching Marley perform traditional songs including Get Up Stand Up.
For reggae fans it is a heroic thing, though Ziggy insists his mother, who was shot in the head that night, deserves the same praise as the father. "He still showed up for the show, the same as him. I'm proud of my dad and mom because there's a team work going on between them. Bob wouldn't be Bob without Rita, you know what I mean?"
Now 53, Ziggy talks to the Overseer on the eve of a new show about his father's life and influence to open at the Saatchi Gallery in London next month.
It is the latest celebration of the singer who four decades after his death from cancer, the 36-year-old, is still one of the best-selling artists in the world. His best-selling album after his death, Legend, released in 1984, has spent more than 950 weeks in the list of 100 best UK songs and has sold over 25m copies worldwide.
The exhibition - which includes Legend's massive vinyl installation - is set as a "multi-sensory experience" with multiple rooms and spaces, each highlighting different aspects of Marley's life. One room, for example, is designed as a jungle with Jamaican sounds and scents, the theme of many songs.
Elsewhere, they have redesigned the authentic urban landscape with great art installations and there is even a joke behind the Bob Marley and Wailers concert platform. The silent disco, which they call Soul Shakedown Studio, invites guests to wear headphones and attend a reggae dance party.
But the main feature of the show is undoubtedly a collection of never-before-seen pictures of Marley himself.
Ziggy explains that they were discovered in the storage room of photographer Jean Bernard Sohiez, who passed away last year and whose dozens of photos appear to have been taken one day in Kingston, more or less than a year before Marley's death.
"She was tough," admits Ziggy. "It was a big part of his life, and my life as a kid around him, but it wasn't just about football - he loved all sports. He loved boxing, running, table tennis, he was an athlete."
At one point he came to Ziggy's elementary school and played against his teammates, he says, adding: "He was fast and had a good kick." He laughs out loud though with the idea that his father's game was at a professional level, as friends who played with him have claimed.
"That was his expectation!" he laughs.
He thinks playing football was Marley's way of reducing some of the pressures of his daily life. His father needed it all the time, he says, and sometimes it felt like everyone wanted his own piece.
"Football helped him keep his mind free," he says.
Frustrated with the gunfire at his home, Marley moved to London for a walk, living in the quiet 42 Oakley Street area of Chelsea. It was there that he wrote one of his most enduring songs, Three Little Birds.
Ziggy remained in Jamaica with his other siblings (Marley had 11 adopted children) but claims he did not miss his father during the separation. Not because he did not like her, but because of necessity, she says.
Ziggy (nickname given to him by his father, meaning "little dick") was 12 years old when Marley died. He even performed at a funeral. And in a broad sense he "continued with it" all his adult life, carving his own niche as the best recording artist. He is an eight-time Grammy Award winner, taking the best reggae album seven times, most recently in 2017.
Ziggy has a similar Trenchtown accent to his father, although he has been living in Los Angeles with his wife Orly and four children for nearly 15 years now.
"As my father used to say, my house is in my head," he says.
Sometimes he makes a tour where he sings only his father's songs.
He has no favorite, but he chooses the Song of Redemption as the song closest to his heart. It is a song that was widely played when his father died, he says, and it meant a lot to many people.
"It carries a lot of emotional connection to me."
The Bob Marley One Love Experience show started on February 2 this year - and will end on April 18 at Saatchi Gallery, London.
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