Zimbabwe will hold its annual Bob Marley Commemorations festival from May 13 until May 15 at Mazowe Sailing Club alongside Lake Chivero.
Festival organizers have predicted that more than 30 reggae music groups from Jamaica, England, South Africa, and local areas will perform during the 3-day event.
Event organizer Trevor Hall, popularly known as Ras Jabu, said this year’s edition of the festivities will be bigger and better than the previous years:
This year we want to change the actual vibe and make the festival a little bit more family friendly. Friday night will be for dancehall, while Saturday afternoon is lovers’ rock and Sunday a platform for female reggae musicians.
The festival will also see various other activities like boat rides, guided tours up the spillway, mountain climbing, nature walks, fishing, swimming and children games.
“Since it is a three-day festival it will have non-stop music and other activities that are more in line with what happens in Jamaica and the Caribbean,” Ras Jabu said.
Ras Jabu said the festival was aimed at promoting upcoming reggae musicians in line with what the late reggae legend Bob Marley and his contemporaries like Peter Tosh did.
“I knew [Bob Marley] personally and he was into assisting other artistes, that is why together with his fellow musicians he set up Tuff Gong Records and it is in that same spirit that we are also trying to promote local artistes,” he said.
There will also be arts and crafts exhibition and a flea market at the festival.
The Bob Marley Commemorations have been held in Zimbabwe since 1987 with the traditional venue being the Harare Gardens. The event seeks to celebrate the life and times of the legendary Jamaican musician who put the genre on the world map and also popularized the Rastafarian Movement.
Bob Marley was born on February 6, 1945 in Nine Miles, St Ann, Jamaica and he died on May 11 1981.
Marley was awarded the International Peace Medal by the African delegation to the United Nations in 1978. He was also an official guest at Zimbabwe’s Independence celebrations in 1980, an honor Marley was quoted as saying was the highest he’d ever received.
