For the first assignment of the Cray Cray, Yay! Yay! Unit, we had to present a 3 minute Pecha Kucha style keynote. Let me explain… Pecha Kucha is a form of presentation where there is a slide up on the screen for 20 seconds and auto changes. This means you have to time the points you want to make perfectly with each slide changing. The contents of the keynote was choosing an iconic person from the THINK DIFFERENT campaign apple made in 1997, and talking about why they were thought of as crazy. 

I chose Bob Marley as I strongly love his music, as most people do. I’m going to basically present my keynote here in the blog as accurately as I can. Here we go…

MY PRESENTATION

Reggae is a musical genre that originated in the late 1950’s, unique for its base, drum beat and off beat rhythm. The tempo of reggae is slower paced than ska but faster that rock steady. It’s influenced by rhythm and blues, jazz, and African folk. Reggae wasn’t internationally recognized until Bob Marley came into the picture. 

Marley was born on February 6, 1945 in St. Ann Parish, Jamaica. He was raised by his teenage black Jamaican mother and grew up in the rural village known as nine miles. He made a friend named Neville Livingston also known as Bunny, who attended the same school as Marley, and shared the same love of music.

Bunny and Marley later moved to Kingston, Jamaica. Marley was inspired by Bunny and the music around him to start playing the guitar, and his love for making music only grew from here. They devoted most of their time to music and Marley spent a lot of time improving his singing ability. He later met Peter McIntosh also known as Tosh, who is an important part of Marley’s story. 

Marley released a few singles in 1962, and they didn’t do very well, meaning he thought he wasn’t a good solo artist. He then teamed up with Bunny and Tosh forming the Wailing Wailers. Their first single “Simmer Down” did very well, going to the top of the Jamaican charts in 1964. Soon after this, 3 more members joined the group. They were starting to become very popular in Jamaica.

The Wailers ran into a huge opportunity when they were offered a contract with island records. After producing an album, they became extremely popular in not only Jamaica, but the whole world. They went on tours around Europe and North America, and became International music icons, spreading reggae everywhere. By the end of Marley’s life, he had sold over 20 million records!

During Marleys life, he was strongly spiritual. He practiced the Rastafarian religion which believed in a single god referred to as “Jah.” This religion taught unity and to love among all. He carried this lifestyle through out his whole life, and it transfers to his music. No matter how old you are, your religion or race his music can bring you happiness.

The last word I would use to describe Marley is “crazy” but in the period of time he was alive, his music caused a lot of political uprising and his protests made people see him as courageous and crazy. Beneath the happy and carefree mood of his music, are powerful statements having to do with issues in Jamaica. He always spoke up against the poverty and violence happening in his country.

His music which represents Love, peace and protest, are still as powerful and timely as they were when they originally released. He advocated for social change while simultaneously letting listeners dance and forget there troubles. Bob Marley united people in Jamaica and all around the world with his music and changed the world one song at a time. 

REFLECTION

The critique I got for this project was that I needed to look up from my iPad a bit more, and have a more excited voice tone. I will definitely focus on this next time I present anything. Moving on, this project didn’t just improve my presentation skills, it taught me so much about a music icon that I didn’t know much about. I didn’t know reggae was internationally introduced by Marley and I didn’t know about the issues happening in Jamacia. His goal was to spread exactly those two things around the world, and well… He did. HERES TO THE CRAZY ONES!