I’d go so far as to say that outside of the Caribbean islands, Marley’s American legacy revolves more around his popularity among white audiences than black ones. You’re more likely to hear his 1984 compilation Legend playing in a Delta Chi frat house (as I have), or in a club in Buenos Aires (as I have), than at an all-black party in New York City (dream on).
Even during his ’70s heyday — especially during his ’70s heyday — black American audiences never fell particularly hard for the Jamaican superstar. His stature as a world-renown black artist writing and performing from an unapologetically Afrocentric perspective failed to draw them in the way his contemporaries like Gaye and Stevie Wonder did. According to people close to Marley, the lack of widespread support and enthusiasm among African-Americans troubled him tremendously.
“He had issues with it, because he wanted African-Americans to hear his message,” his son Ziggy said in a 2012 documentary.
Why the U.S. slept on Marley while he was still with us is a mystery that’s up for conjecture (keep reading for mine). An even greater mystery is why black America never really joined the party en masse. (At least I eventually showed up.)
In the ’70s, a number of notable black artists — Bobby Womack, Lou Rawls, and Teddy Pendergrass, among them — had limited crossover success but were enormously popular with black audiences, which translated to considerably higher peaks on the R&B charts than on the pop charts. Why wasn’t Marley among them?
From 1976 on, he wasn’t significantly more successful on the American R&B charts than he was on the Americans pop charts. In some cases, he was even less so. Legend peaked at No. 18 on the Top 200 album chart but at a mere No. 34 on the R&B album chart, and Rastaman Vibration, his highest-charting effort on both the pop side and the R&B side, peaked on the R&B album chart at No. 11, three notches lower than it did on the Top 200.
Too Jamaican?
As for Marley’s lackluster commercial standing in black America during the ’70s, I’m inclined to point to the foreignness of his music, his low-key performing style (he could be a stunning singer, but his focus wasn’t on coloratura and melisma, those vocal pyrotechniques on which black American music lovers have long placed a high premium), and perhaps, a certain degree of xenophobia over his Jamaican heritage.
Marley’s separate standing with black Americans and white Americans, the latter of whom belatedly embraced him collectively only after the release of Legend, makes more sense when I consider my own American experience as an outsider.
