Damian Marley Drops Timeless Earth Day Tribute ‘Life Is a Circle’
Spending the last 12 months off the radar in a pandemic-induced creative slump, Damian Marley emerged on Earth Day with a message both potent and blunt: Life Is a Circle. The youngest son of reggae music’s natural mystic, Damian’s music over the years has ranged from the captivating Road To Zion to the cautionary Reach Home Safe. Life Is a Circle lends itself to larger themes of loss and longing, while monochrome stills and vivid drone shots define the rich visual clip.
“It’s been a quiet year for me lyrically,” the Autumn Leaves singer told Rolling Stone. “I haven’t put out any other song — I did very few songs for myself this last 12 months. This song captures our loss. We’ve lost a whole heap of things, people, history. And maybe this song won’t make sense now, but in 10 years when we think of this period it will make sense.”
Directed by B+, Marley’s Director of Photography since the Stony Hill suite, the video relays the segregated history of Miami’s Virginia Key Beach Park through captions and footage.
In the segregated South, Black people weren’t allowed access to most beaches. Civil rights activists mounted protest after protest until 1945 when Virginia Key Beach Park was opened as Miami’s first ‘Colored Only’ facility. The move was well-received, and “marginalized communities like Jamaicans, Cubans, Caribbean Islanders & South Americans felt at home there too.”
The beach fell into decay and disrepair after the City closed it again in 1982. City officials “schemed” to sell the overgrown, overrun property but they were stopped by organized citizens who protested the commercial plans and called for revitalisation. The beach was restored and reopened to the public as an “ecological treasure” in 2008.
A story of struggle, survival and renewal found on 2020’s Set up Shop, Vol. 4, the song is a summary of life’s seasons, even more fitting in current times. “O time has no master/ We’re all in suspense/ Jah don’t run no border/ No wall, Nor no fence,” Marley sings on the melodic track.
The themes are also fresh for the young Gong whose immersive event series, Welcome To Jamrock Cruise, has just been cancelled for a second straight year. According to a post on their Instagram page last week, the decision came not only from a health and safety perspective, “but also the current uncertainty of when cruising will resume and what social distancing and travel restrictions may be in place that may alter the production and programming of our event.”
Marley’s team also encountered a bit of a runaround in shooting the Life Is a Circle visuals, which it seems almost didn’t happen for a number of reasons.
“I went to scout the beach above Virginia Key Beach and somehow I drifted the wrong way and ended up in the park”, B+ told the outlet. “The locations guy from our production was adamant that I shouldn’t shoot there, that we were very likely to be shut down.”
He added that he insisted because of the beach’s unique aesthetic but just as he’d been warned, park rangers pulled up on the scene to halt production. But sometimes even setbacks and detours are part of the plan, and mere mention of the Marley name gave the officers a change of heart.
“This video is pure serendipity,” Marley said. “Spiritually we say it was meant to be, everything worked in our favor. Jah is connecting the dots for us; it has become bigger than us. I feel most honored about discovering a piece of history that we didn’t know about… and now it is a privilege to be able to share that with the world.”