For everything there is Bob Marley

I didn't like reggae music at first then I went to Cebu and thats where all the magic started.

You see young as I was I was looking for a reason. This reason is adamant in every youth there is in a third world country whose hapless youth lost hope.

I always associated reggae with ganja and the dreadlocks plus the game of soccer. Clearly the rastafarians of Cebu lived up to the name of a Jah believer.

The reggae I hear in Manila is not that convincing to say the most except for a few which earned my respect. But mostly as the youth of my generation the sound of the raging 90's rock scene proved to be more idealistic until it simmered down to the millenium and eventually band members of rock bands started working on call centers or look for other means of income as rock became the bastion of foreign artists as a means of milking the floundering Philippine Music scene.

So the question remained in my mind the search for that music that would inspire my generation, that music fraught with inconsistencies and which all cultures could sing and dance to the beat.

Then I found Bob Marley.

The experience was radical to say the least enlightening I didn't really like it at first but when you're drowned in alcohol add to that the rage of youth the beat becomes a transgression and retains its sonorous cadence in the ears as each words that sprung timeless from the mouth of that Jamaican legend who sang according to his peop[le and his ideals became tangible little by little uintil I just can't stop myself singin and bouncing my head as if in prayer or trance.

the first lines chanted down my temple "No woman, No cry" became a war cry as if hungered for more I never could distinguish the happiness and the blessing the song gave me.

as to this day I never learned the chords for the song in respect to the music and to the person in my heart I thought I'd never want his music to be mine I only want it to be his that everytime I listen to it, It will look like I'm listening to it for the first time.

But I am no dreadlock-hippie looking person I prefer to be the clean cut guy but I dance like a freak when I listen to reggae.

Other than the sound and the music I believe the biggest role of Bob Marleys music is to be able to inspire people and offer them hope.

Hope is something bigger and stronger in the human spirit and when placed in music it becomes stronger than love or peace. It becomes the mountain everybody dares to climb, it becomes the plateau where sunlight treads cheerfully.

Hope is the music of Bob Marley.

Hope is everyday the prayer of the dying and the aggrieved.

As I'm writing this I'm listening to his song "Exodus" the lyrics "Open your eyes and look within:
Are you satisfied (with the life you're living)?"

Ask yourself this and listen to his music perhaps theres a better chance we'd meet each other someday "Jammin"