What follows is a review of a home video from "Aricorn International Pictures,
Inc." titled "Bob Marley's Last Known Interview." The "director" is Chuck
McNeil. Running time 42 minutes. The date listed is 1998, although I
believe it has only been advertised and distributed in 1999.

A one-sentence summary: If you're interested in Marley's life and
philosophy, as well as his music, this video is worth the price,
particularly because it shows Bob in context, conducting a
reasoning with other members of the Wailers to a primarily
Afro-American group of interviewers.

First a qualifier, and a criticism. The producers of this video
do not inspire confidence when they claim, on the cover of the video,
that the interview took place in Los Angeles in 1981, three weeks
before Marley died in Miami of brain cancer. Maybe they just meant
this as a marketing ploy, since they claim that this is "the LAST
known in-depth interview of the man and his religion."

   The video quite obviously takes place at UCLA on the "Survival"
tour in 1979. In the spring of 1981 Bob was dying in Germany.
It is assuredly NOT the last in-depth interview--Gil Noble did one
in New York in 1980, just before Marley collapsed, as did Earl Chin.

   The cover also states "This tape has never been seen before."
This is a false claim. The interview in its entirety may not have
been seen before, but excerpts have. Bob's comments about Marcus Garvey
on this tape, for instance, appear on "Time Will Tell." About the
on-camera introduction of the director, probably the less said the better.

   Alright, enough quibbling. This video is like a time capsule, and
it reveals some new facets of Bob and his crew. Probably the most
fascinating part, for me, is how Bob reacts to an Afro-American
intellectual, presumably a grad student or teacher at UCLA, who remarks:
"What would you say to those people who say that revolutionary music can
only be made from within the revolution? That since you are here, that
you can't write about the African revolution?"

The responses of Bob and the Wailers:
Neville Garrick: "I would say, 'soon we'll find out who are the
real revolutionaries'."
Bob: "We don't even claim that. [paraphrased] In Jamaica, we know our history
through slavery. [so Africa is not separate from us] But in the West,
up until a few years ago, you couldn't even talk to your own black
man about Africa. It was terrible...If not for Selassie,
we wouldn't even be able to talk about Africa/Ethiopia...
I wanna tell ya: if them want to win the revolution, them have to win
it with Rasta. Cuz if you win another way, you have to go fight again.
When you're Rasta and you win, there's no more war."
Junior Murvin: "If you study the lyrics to the song "War," you'll see
what His Majesty had to say about it. And if you can base your life on that
philosphy, then you become a Rasta."

[MY COMMENTARY]
   There is a critique from Bob here of the fact that he had not been
able to bring his message to Afro-Americans, many of whom wanted to
hearing nothing about Africa during this time. Black DJ's were
dismissing reggae as "jungle music."

   This is an interesting variation on Bob's previous comments on
what it meant to be a revolutionary, and whether he was or was not one.
The reference here, of course, is the famously ambiguous line from
"Zimbabwe": "Now we'll find out who is the real revolutionaries."
Bob would repeat this line to the I-Threes in Zimbabwe in 1980,
when they ran off stage after getting tear-gassed during
Independence ceremonies.

   In an interview on "Time Will Tell," Bob claims: "Me and this massive
is a revolutionary--we don't take no bribe from nobody--we're fighting
single handed with music."

   But here he is elaborating on his belief that "music is the
biggest gun, because it save." He expresses his awareness
of the Gandhian principle that "an eye for an eye leaves the whole
world blind." Violent revolutions seem to inevitably bring to power a
"new boss" who, although previously oppressed, once in
power turn into an oppressor. The only way to break this cycle, Bob
is saying, is through a revolution in consciousness. And it is
the trans-racialism of Rasta which he endorses--which is on one level
a philosphy of black liberation, but as Junior Murvin's comments
make clear, is really a multiracial culture and community, open
to anyone who applies Selassie's non-racial philosophy.

   There is also an interesting segment near the end of of this
video in which Bob spells out of view of Rasta as a "third way":
"In this world, you have America, and you have Russia, and you
have Rasta," he says. "It's that simple." Rasta is neither
about capitalism, nor socialism, but the Inity of the consciousness
of those who praise a living God--Jah Rastafari.

   Near the begining of the tape, we get a glimpse of Bob's conflicted
attitudes on women. A woman sitting in front of the band asks about
Bob's view of the place of women in Rasta.
   "All of us come from woman," Bob answers.
   When she asks him to be more specific, he acts very uncomfortable.
He calls Judy Mowatt and says he doesn't understand where the question
is coming from. So Judy comes on camera, and is asked: Are women Rastas
viewed as domestics? Or something more? Judy says that, yes, in the
beginning, women were seen only as domestics. But now women were going
on the road, leaving their children at home, and fulfilling their talent.

   There is also critique from several members of the Wailers about
the materialism of Afro-Americans. Discussion of what reggae is
from Wire Lindo and others. And numerous affirmations of faith by
Bob and all the band.

END REVIEW

M.C. Gregory
[author of "Bob Marley's Zion: A Transracial 'Blackman Redemption',"
from the book ON RACIAL FRONTIERS (Cambridge University Press)]
http://www.bobmarley.com/blackhistory/stephens.html

-- 
Gregory Stephens, Lecturer
Mass Communication and American Studies
University of California-Berkeley
gstephen@weber.ucsd.edu