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Buju Banton Honored With Bob Marley Comparisons, But Wants To Grow

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Buju Banton Bob Marley
Buju Banton, Bob Marley

Even as North American rappers Jay-Z and Tory Lanez both recently hoped for a Bob Marley-like legacy, Dancehall star Buju Banton says he’s content with being himself when it comes to comparisons with the late Reggae King.

In an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music, Banton spoke candidly and openly about several topics including the comparison between himself and Bob Marley. The comparisons often rest with lyrical content and quality of music but they heightened in 2019 when Banton filled Jamaica’s National Stadium to capacity at his homecoming concert.  The only other artist to achieve that feat was Bob Marley, who, in 1978, with his One Love Peace concert filled all of the stadium’s 35,000 seats.

Lowe asked Buju Banton, “There is a name that people keep aligning you to, with respect, every time people draw some kind of parallel with you and the great Bob Marley what does it say to you as a human being?”

“I always think in my mind to be compared to a great man like ‘Gong’ is a honor, more than a privilege but I need the opportunity to be me,” Banton responded.  “I am a living, breathing, walking man under the face of my father son so allow me to be me because if man cannot do what other great men have done he may as well die”

“I have learned that I could not have seen my shadow in a running water, so when the water stood still there is my shadow,” the Not An Easy Road artist added.

In April, Canadian rapper Tory Lanez, who collaborated on Banton on the Trust (remix) last year, told Flaunt Magazine that his ultimate goal was a larger-than-life legacy like the late Bob Marley.  Likewise, when asked how he’d like to be remembered, American rapper Jay-Z told the UK’s Sunday Times in an April interview, that he hopes everyone will mention him in the vein of greats like Bob Marley.

This episode of The Zane Lowe show started with a rendition of How Great Thou Art by Gladys Knight and the Pips and drew comments from Buju who shared, “Music that touches you is the music he grew up on. Those words being sung by sister Gladys and the Pips is one of the most beautiful words you could listen to on a Sunday morning or any day its applicable, we want the music to educate and teach.” 

He further lamented, “A lot of things being taught today is not allowing our young men and women to assert themselves”.

Buju, who hinted at turning the conversation into a political one by mentioning Joe Biden, was quickly diverted back to the musical topic by Zane. “We are in a politically correct world, if you say the wrong thing you offend, if you say the right thing you offend,” said Buju.

The Gargamel, whose last album Upside Down 2020 was nominated for a Grammy Award, said that “going forward we want to make music that’s wholesome, like something that can make you dance but do not lose your morality.”