Julian Marley Speaks On Bob Marley Reclaiming Billboard Top Spot From Stick Figure In One Week
Julian Marley says his father Bob Marley’s Legend is unstoppable after the album returned to the top of the Billboard Reggae Albums chart one week after it was dethroned by American band Stick Figure’s Wisdom.
The two-time Grammy nominee was speaking with Richard Burgess during an interview on The Bridge 99 FM, when the veteran broadcaster brought up the subject and asked for his opinion.
“Recently, we know that Daddy’s album has been holding down the number one spot for years and then we heard of a group that popped in and went to the number one spot for only one week. But then, by the next week, the Gong was back. What do you read into all of that?” Burgess, popularly known as Richie B, had asked.
“Well, you know it come like the Bible. You can’t get rid of it; no matter how much years and years, The Bible is there. Suh fi him music is like Bible, like yuh caan get rid a it. Fi some reason him come fi do something and that project, or dat book or dat record must be in every nook and cranny…,” the As I Am artist replied, smiling.
After being displaced Stick Figure’s album Wisdom, Bob Marley’s Legend: The Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers returned to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart seven days later, a position it had held prior for 140 unbroken weeks.
At the time of Marley’s brief displacement, there was a big uproar in Jamaica with many in the industry, including Derrick “Dukie” Simpson, founder and leader of legendary roots reggae band Black Uhuru, claiming that Reggae was now taken over and by “the white guy.”
Wisdom, which had been released independently on September 9 via Ruffwood Records, had sold 13,900 units from sales and streaming in the United States in its first week of release.
The Legend album, although it was first released in 1984, had entered the Reggae Albums chart dated January 18, 2020, for the first time, on the heels of a change in Billboard’s rules.
Legend: The Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers is the second longest-charting album in the history of the Billboard 200 chart as well as the UK Albums chart. The album peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, which made it Marley’s highest-charting album in the US.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has also certified Legend for selling 15 million copies, a total that includes purchases made prior to 1991.
On August 12 this year, the album was certified 14X Platinum in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) after it sold an additional 300,000 units there since August 2020. At the time, the BPI said Legend, the 16th best-selling album of all time in the UK, had sold more than 4,200,000 units total there.
The album consists of all 10 of Marley’s first Top 40 hits in the UK, in addition to three songs from the original Wailers with group members Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, namely, Stir It Up, I Shot The Sheriff and Get Up, Stand Up.
The 16-track album also includes songs such as Is This Love, No Woman No Cry, Could You be Loved, Three Little Birds, Buffalo Soldier, Stir It Up, Easy Skanking and One Love/People Get Ready.
The other tracks on the album are Waiting in Vain, Redemption Song, Satisfy My Soul, Exodus, Jamming, and Punky Reggae Party.