Sidilla Editha "Cedella" Booker (née Malcolm and previously Marley) (July 23, 1926 – April 8, 2008) was a Jamaican singer and writer. She was the mother of
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
musician
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements o ...
.
Biography
Booker was born Cedilla Editha Malcolm in Rhoden Hall,
Saint Ann Parish
Saint Ann is the largest parish in Jamaica. It is situated on the north coast of the island, in the county of Middlesex, roughly halfway between the eastern and western ends of the island. It is often called "the Garden Parish of Jamaica" on ac ...
,
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
, daughter of Albertha Whilby and Omeriah Malcolm, a farmer, "bush doctor", and one of the most respected residents of
Nine Mile. Her paternal grandfather was Robert "Uncle Day" Malcolm, who descended from the
Coromantee
Coromantee, Coromantins, Coromanti or Kormantine (derived from the name of the Ghanaian slave fort Fort Kormantine in the Ghanaian town of Kormantse, Central Ghana) is an English-language term for enslaved people from the Akan ethnic group, ta ...
(or
Akan Akan may refer to:
People and languages
*Akan people, an ethnic group in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire
*Akan language, a language spoken by the Akan people
*Kwa languages, a language group which includes Akan
*Central Tano languages, a language group w ...
) slaves shipped to Jamaica from the
Gold Coast
Gold Coast may refer to:
Places Africa
* Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana:
** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642)
** Dutch G ...
, today known as
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. At 18, Cedella Malcolm married 59 year old Norval Sinclair Marley, a
white Jamaican
White Jamaicans also known as European-Jamaicans are Jamaican people whose ancestry lies within the continent of Europe, most notably Great Britain and Ireland. There are also communities of people who are descendants of people who arrived from ...
of
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and rumored
Syrian Jewish
Syrian Jews ( he, יהודי סוריה ''Yehudey Surya'', ar, الْيَهُود السُّورِيُّون ''al-Yahūd as-Sūriyyūn'', colloquially called SYs in the United States) are Jews who lived in the region of the modern state of Syri ...
descent, whose father's family came from
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
; the family of his mother, Ellen Marley (née Bloomfield), came from the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
.
She became pregnant with his son, Robert Nesta (whose second
given name
A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a fa ...
"Nesta" means "wise messenger"). Norval Marley was an officer as well as the plantation overseer. His family applied constant pressure, however, and although he provided financial support for them, the Captain seldom saw his wife and son.
Bob was ten years old when Norval died of a heart attack in 1955 at age 70.
Cedella and Bob then moved to
Trenchtown
Trench Town (also Trenchtown) is a neighbourhood located in the parish of St. Andrew, part of which is in Kingston, the capital and largest city of Jamaica. In the 1960s, Trench Town was known as the Hollywood of Jamaica. Today Trench Town is t ...
, a slum neighborhood in
Kingston. This was the only place Booker could afford to live at the time, being a young woman moving from the country to the big city on her own.
While living in Trenchtown, Booker gave birth to a daughter, Claudette Pearl, with Taddeus Livingston, the father of
Bunny Wailer
Neville O'Riley Livingston (10 April 1947 – 2 March 2021), known professionally as Bunny Wailer, was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and percussionist. He was an original member of reggae group The Wailers along with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. ...
, who formed the original
Wailers trio with Bob Marley and
Peter Tosh
Winston Hubert McIntosh, OM (19 October 1944 – 11 September 1987), professionally known as Peter Tosh, was a Jamaican reggae musician. Along with Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer, he was one of the core members of the band the Wailers (1963 ...
in 1963. She then married Edward Booker, an American civil servant, and resided first in
Delaware
Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...
, where she gave birth to two more sons, Richard and Anthony, with Booker. After Edward Booker's death in 1976, Cedella moved to
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
,
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
, where she was present at the deathbed of her famous son, who died from
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
in 1981. In 1990, Anthony was killed in a shootout with Miami police, after walking through a shopping mall with a 12 ga. shotgun and opening fire on responding police.
Booker lived in Miami for the remainder of her life. She is survived by her son Richard Booker and his children Princess Booker, Crystal Booker and Zaya Booker.
In 1993, Booker conceived and created what is today called the
9 Mile Music Festival, an annual music event held every year since in Miami to help keep alive Bob Marley's message of peace, love, and unity. As part of the admission fee to the one-day
music festival
A music festival is a community event with performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme such as musical genre (e.g., rock, blues, folk, jazz, classical music), nationality, locality of musicians, or h ...
, attendees bring canned goods that are collected and donated to help feed the needy in the Miami area through various local charities.
Called "the keeper of the flame," Booker grew voluminous
dreadlocks
Dreadlocks, also known as locs or dreads, are rope-like strands of hair formed by locking or braiding hair.
Origins
Some of the earliest depictions of dreadlocks date back as far as 1600–1500 BCE in the Minoan Civilization, one of Europe' ...
, adopted her grandson
Rohan, Bob Marley's son by Janet Hunt, and occasionally performed live with Marley's children,
Ky-Mani,
Ziggy
Ziggy is a masculine given name, often a diminutive form (hypocorism) of Zigmunt and other names. It is also a nickname. Notable people with the name include:
Nickname or hypocorism
* Ezekiel Ansah (born 1989), National Football League pla ...
,
Stephen
Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; ...
,
Damian Damian ( la, links=no, Damianus) may refer to:
*Damian (given name)
*Damian (surname)
*Damian Subdistrict, in Longquanyi District, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
See also
*Damiani, an Italian surname
*Damiano (disambiguation)
*Damien (disambiguation)
*Dam ...
, and
Julian. Later, she released the albums ''Awake Zion'' and ''Smilin' Island of Song.'' Cedella Booker participated in the festivities in
Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa (; am, አዲስ አበባ, , new flower ; also known as , lit. "natural spring" in Oromo), is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. It is also served as major administrative center of the Oromia Region. In the 2007 census, t ...
,
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
, commemorating Marley's 60th birthday in 2005. She also wrote two Marley biographies.
Booker died in her sleep from natural causes in Miami on April 8, 2008; she was 81.
Works authored
Booker wrote two books on the subject of her son, Bob Marley.
[
* ''Bob Marley: An Intimate Portrait by His Mother'', which was published in 1997][ by Penguin Books Ltd (UK),
* ''Bob Marley, My Son'', which was published in 2003][ by Taylor Trade Publishing,
]
References
External links
The story of Cedella Booker and Bob Marley
{{DEFAULTSORT:Booker, Cedella Marley
1926 births
2008 deaths
People from Saint Ann Parish
Jamaican non-fiction writers
Jamaican women writers
Jamaican writers
Jamaican emigrants to the United States
20th-century Jamaican women singers
C
ROIR artists
Jamaican reggae singers
20th-century non-fiction writers