No Woman No Cry (25 page)

When I didn't see Peter and Bunny at the funeral, I took note of it—oh, they're not here. Nor did they offer to help, or attend any of the functions. And this blew my mind. At the moment I said to myself, this is unbelievable, although I didn't have time to really focus on them. But after the ceremonies were over and a few months had passed, a lot of things came up, and I'm saying, wow, this is a load I don't think I can carry alone. I'd love to reach out to Bunny and Peter, ask them to participate in this legacy. It wasn't even about money. The assets—music was the main one—were more than money but valueless without proper administration. That would take careful planning, and considering that Bob didn't leave a will, anything could happen.

So I called Bunny and Peter to say that I would love to have a meeting and invited them to come to the Tuff Gong office at 56 Hope Road. I said, “You know it seems only reasonable for you guys to be the ones who come together with me.” And I prayed that to myself, even though I knew about the different conflicts and problems that had divided the group in the past. But I put that aside at this point and told myself there was room to start anew, and let this be the line that might reopen the door.

But right away Bunny and Peter arrived with an attitude. First they were hostile to the guard at the gate: “Open this bomboclaat and blah blah …” But I took them upstairs to the office. At Hope Road, everything around had to do with Bob—not only the record shop, but photographs, posters from concerts, memorabilia, all that kind of stuff. Suddenly, to my horror, Peter started to pull Bob's pictures off the wall. Pulled down Bob's pictures—and said he didn't want to see no dead man! Unbelievable! Don't want to see no dead man—pull it down!
Eh eh eh bomboclaat!
And Bob not even a year gone, and everybody still mourning!

I couldn't believe this. I hadn't realized the depth of Peter's animosity, the extent of the power struggle, the grievance that was held even to the grave. And Bunny was very much the same, adamant. His position was that Bob's death had been “the wages of his sin and corruption.” And I told myself at that very moment that one day I was going to talk about this, because people might need to know. It was not easy to see and hear.

All in the face of my intention to include them, to say “Hey guys, let's continue this work.” But they said they were coming in to take over, and they were going to change this and to change that, and they didn't want to see Bob's picture hanging because he was dead. I should close the place down and start anew.

I kept my cool and said I was very surprised at their reaction, though all the while I was thinking, this can't work. Then Bunny said to me—and I have been waiting twenty years for these words to be in print—if
I
would come and work for
them
, give up what I had begun to do … I looked at them and could only think, they must be crazy! And then I remembered how bewildered I'd been when I had come into the picture years before. Back then I was so used to women like Aunty and Fat Aunty that I was shocked to discover that to some Jamaican men women were for sex, cooking, washing clothes, having babies, shutting up, and taking licks.

When they were gone I told myself no, no, this is where I put on my armored suit. It's time to fight. Seems like there's gonna be a war here. Bob passed in 1981, and in '82 the war started. By then we'd had to form an estate, and the lawyers would not allow anybody to just come in and do what they wanted. Everything had to be done legally, between the wife and children and the trust, the estate. And if that was Bunny and Peter's attitude and they were planning to come in and take away everything, then neither the children nor I would have anything.

We had a battle, man.
I
had a battle. Those people whom I thought would embrace me and support me just to keep Bob's musical legacy going—I did not know that they were carrying such grudges and wanted only revenge. When I realized this, I said, oh no. I sat down with my family to discuss the situation and they agreed that no, this could not be right. So I had to turn my wheels, and this is when Rita Marley Music came into the picture. I established my own company, and called it RMM—which still means Robert Marley Music, because I'm R and he's R, so it's Rita and Robbie, whatever way you want to look at it.

Sometimes it
hurts
, when you are given caps to wear that you are unprepared for. There was no way I could avoid being the business manager of the Marley legacy, though I didn't really want to be. But I had no choice, there was no one else, and I had to learn on the job, one day at a time. It's quite an experience to do that, to be saying to yourself every day, if I had only known this, or known that,
oh
. But then you try to retain the knowledge: Yes, this is how that goes, now I
know
it.

A lot of people had a lot of thoughts about what should have happened with Bob's estate, especially since I was appointed an administrator. The situation might even have been worse if Bob had made a will and said, “This is for my wife and children,” because then I'd have been targeted for
having
it. Instead, I was accused when it was discovered that oh, she doesn't have it, she's
fighting
for it because he didn't leave it to her. Even though I was qualified as his wife, I still had to fight—not only for myself, of course, but for the whole family, since the law states that if a person dies without a will his estate becomes a government's domain, leaving you to show how well or how come you deserve to participate in it.

According to law, the estate had to advertise for anyone who felt that he or she had a claim. Anyone who claimed to be owed anything, or who claimed to be a child of Bob Marley, was given ten days to report. Some of the claims were amazing! There were people much older than Bob who claimed he was their father, others who claimed to have been adopted by me! One guy said he was my aborted child that I thought was dead but had not died. There were people who came to say that Bob had promised to take care of them for the rest of their lives and now they were disappointed that I was not doing that! Things got crazier as the days went by.

There were also big problems with taxes, and so-called friends, and so-called managers. Just before Bob passed, he had called his business lawyer and made him promise to get back all the rights to the early JAD work we had done and give them to his family. That alone became a big problem. Then there were those who “made it happen.” So many people “made” Bob that I wondered what Bob had been doing for himself. And they all insisted that “
we
did this and
we
did that.” There were so many who tried to take advantage of my situation, to take over a woman who didn't have any experience of this sort. People who were sure that whatever was coming had to be too much for me, all of them looking at material and money.

I felt caught in a trap with everything left blank. The three people who had any clear knowledge of Bob's affairs were Bob's manager Don Taylor (who had been dismissed before Bob passed), his lawyer David Steinberg, and his accountant Marvin Zolt. Those were the people I had to put my head with to really understand what was what and where do we go from here. As I've mentioned, after the JAD days, I was never involved in the business aspect of Bob's career. It was always kept outside of Jamaica, most of it international. Other people took care of the business, because it was enough for me to be in the studio, onstage, or at home with the kids. I didn't start out to be the businessperson that I've become.

I was put on trial—a trial that lasted about six months in the United States—for spending on things that the estate felt did not apply to Mr. Marley. The administrators' complaint was that I had acted illegally, that Don Taylor had told them I was spending millions of dollars, living like a queen, and should be put in jail. He tried to sell me as a young, black, stupid woman whose husband had died leaving her millions—this was the impression he gave people. He misled me, but I knew I had to listen to him nevertheless, because he had actually been handling a lot of Bob's affairs, and he knew a lot. So I had to just stick my head in and hear what was being told, because I had been left stumbling. For a period of time after Bob passed, I had allowed myself to be guided by Don Taylor, although I did not altogether trust him and in the past had often saved his tail from being kicked—by Bob, for being not only unfair but a thief, unable to turn over what he should have. Bob caught Don on cocaine binges many times, on the job yet unable to do his work properly under that influence. And I, foolishly I guess, had always been very sisterly, telling Bob, “Oh oh, poor Don, don't do that, don't do that.” Now this was the same Don Taylor who told the estate to put me in prison, because I was spending millions on things that I shouldn't—like taking care of our children, taking care of Bob's mother, doing the things that Bob would have done normally.

It's amazing to me that someone would deliberately prey on a bereaved woman and then turn around and accuse her of the very actions he has led her into. At one point Don Taylor convinced me to buy an apartment in Nassau that he had rented—it would be a good investment and he was broke, he told me. He took me to the place to meet the owners, to the bank to pay for the place. Then he went back to the estate to complain that I had bought a home overseas! All the while, having inside knowledge of Bob's affairs, he knew that there weren't all the millions he told people about. (If Bob had had that much money, he would not have had to work so hard, or so continuously, before he passed.) We have a saying in Jamaica that uses the word “maaga,” which means “wretched thin” and applies perfectly to Don Taylor: Sorry for maaga dog, maaga dog turn round and bite you.

The trial was the outcome of a lawsuit against Bob's lawyer and accountant to which the estate joined me, and as a result of which we had to turn around and sue the estate. Actually, we were sued for being creative with what moneys there were and for doing things that were only logical and right and also necessary. I had to buy the property where we are now, the factory on Marcus Garvey Drive, the studio in Jamaica which we're now operating from. I had to prepare the Melody Makers, the Wailers, and the I-Three to go on the road for tours to keep Bob's spirit alive—he had asked Ziggy to do that: “On your way up, take me up.” Besides, it was only right—and I
know
Bob would have wanted it—to let the children try this (a tryout that, as anyone can see, has resulted in wonderful things). I had to give the Wailers money and the I-Three money to continue working with Tuff Gong; I had to pay off a lot of debts that they said Bob had left; I had to give Bob's mother money and to finish paying for the house in Miami where she and the rest of her children live, because Bob had a mortgage on it. I had to pay for his funeral. And all these things turned back on me—they wanted to see me go to prison for this.

But everything I did was
legal
. I had been listening to David Steinberg and Marvin Zolt because Bob had always trusted them. I thought that was the right thing to do, to be taking advice from them since he always had, and for doing things he would have done, that they were planning to do with him. I didn't do anything on my own, everything I did was upon recommendations. So I was able to go into court and tell the judge exactly like it was, and I was able to show the judge exactly what
I
did, sir. What difference
I
made when I came into the picture. What difference I made because I
used
this money, and the least was paid upon myself. The judge saw how much promotion I'd done, and how many
more
records I'd caused to be sold, and the jury knew I'd only tried to do right—how can you steal from yourself?

I have the transcript of the whole thing. It was deep, but we won and, funnily enough, all the complainants, including Don Taylor, are now dead.

Another trial that I had to endure after Bob's passing was the one in which Danny Sims sued us for the rights to the catalogue that Bob owned. In defense of Danny Sims's position, his lawyer called people who testified that Bob's songs belonged to Danny! This ordeal seems perfectly to illustrate Bob's song in which he says, “your best friend can be your worst enemy and your worst enemy your best friend.” I was on tour during that period of the trial, which took place in a Manhattan court. At one point we were playing Manhattan, and as I didn't think I should show my face in the courtroom, I asked a member of my entourage—my chef Obediah—to pass by and just see what was going on. As it happened, he entered the courtroom just in time to hear Don Taylor telling the judge how Bob Marley had been one of Jamaica's most dangerous men! When Don noticed him, he told the judge that I had sent Obediah to kill him—and asked to have Obediah removed!

All the while, throughout these trials and tribulations, I'm saying I know I didn't do anything wrong. Because I was only trying to help a man who went too soon—who brought light to my life and who had helped me, in many ways, when I was young.

I want to make that perfectly clear! I thought Bob did the greatest thing by leading me to find myself. Yes! Who else could I have given myself to? If I'd have gone on to another man, I might have become someone else. But then I was obedient to him, because what he said was so important. “You are what you are, you are black and you are beautiful.” And I know there are many, many others who learned that same lesson from him.

It's still not easy, but it's a little easier now because the kids are taking up some of the fight, as well as the responsibility: “This is what my daddy did, this is not what he meant, this is what he didn't do, but this is what he wanted to do.” So we have had to consider certain things. We lost a lot of money that we could have had. But that's Bob. He wasn't as interested in making money as he was in getting his message and his music across the world. Being able to go to Italy and outdo the pope in numbers of attendance—that meant more than a million bucks to him!