It can’t be too surprising that Ziggy Marley has often involved himself in family/kid-related projects in his career. His iconic father, Bob Marley, typified family in broadly exaggerated and unconventional ways, and Ziggy is most assuredly his father’s most famous son. He might not have been the first to follow dad into the family business, but he was clearly the first to scale and then exceed his father’s lofty heights.
Bob Marley brought Reggae to the world, and it made him a legend; Ziggy brought Reggae to the marketplace, and it made him a wealthy celebrity.
Don’t read that as a slam: Ziggy has been a legitimate Reggae artist as well as shrewd musical marketer — his 2007 best Reggae Album Grammy for Love is My Religion was no fluke — and his plethora of kid-oriented projects (from providing the theme to PBS’s Arthur, incidental music for Dora the Explorer to voicing Bernie the jellyfish in Shark Tale to a proposed music video for Sesame Street’s upcoming 40th anniversary season) have been sincere attempts at outreach to a demographic that he truly loves.
With his latest solo project, Family Time, Ziggy finally crosses the threshold and makes an album specifically for kids but with the whole family in mind.
He plays with 311 at Riverbend Saturday. Get Sound Advice here.
