Bob Marley & the Wailers
Kaya
We take Bob Marley for granted. At this point, copies of Legend have been handed out with college applications for almost as long as there have been colleges. Rarely has such an iconic artist been thought and spoken about so generally. Bob Marley has, by and large, come to represent the entire genre of reggae--which, truthfully, is not as huge a burden to carry on his shoulders as his actual political significance in his lifetime might have been, but it's a close second. So much reggae bears Marley's influence on it--down to his phrasing and inflection, and The Wailers' instrumentation--that it's nearly impossible to tell where his influence ends and anyone else's begins. As such, a lot of the details that make Bob Marley great get lost in thinking about him as the guy in all the posters and T-shirts. Conversely, his artistic shortcomings tend to either get ignored by those enamored of his music, or used as an excuse to ignore reggae altogether by those who aren't.
Kaya is mid-period Marley, and its concentration on love and ganja lead it to being considered moderately toothless at the time of its release. Some of that criticism is more than fair. "Kaya" is a Jamaican euphemism for weed. As if that weren't plain enough a mission statement, the album begins with the line "Excuse me while I light my spliff," from "Easy Skanking," the chorus of which goes, "We're taking it easy/ We're taking it slow/ We're taking it easy"--because Bob Marley is too stoned to come up with a third word to go along with "easy" and "slow." The rest of the lyrics on the album are even more laughably bad. On "Satisfy My Soul," he sings, "Please don't you rock my boat/ Because I don't want my boat to be rocked," and "When I meet you around the corner/ You make me feel like a sweepstakes winner," which is presumably an improvement on another line that rhymed "dinner" with "winner." Musically, it sort of lopes along, mid-tempo, with the most upbeat song (upbeat being extremely relative in this case) being the one about his lover leaving him. Even the song "Sun is Shining" sounds intended for the middle of the night.
Yet, the cumulative effect of Kaya is stunning. The album is expertly curated, with some of the songs re-recordings from songs early in Marley's career. The first five songs have a calming effect, with "Easy Skanking" providing their mantra right off the bat. "Kaya" advocates smoking marijuana to avoid the rain. The ephemeral "Is This Love" has romantic wishes so placid they're adorable--"We'll share the same room." Junior Marvin lays down some Dire Straits-worthy blues guitar on "Is This Love" and "Sun is Shining," while, on "Satisfy My Soul," the horns bleat just enough to let you know they're there. Then, just as mellowly, the album takes a turn. Slowly, trouble creeps in. "She's Gone" is a vaguely Elvis-channeling rumination on Marley's love leaving him, "Crisis" notes, "They say in some people's world the sun never shine at all," and "Running Away" gets completely introspective. Finally, in the gorgeous closing song, "Time Will Tell," Marley casts the entire album in a different light: "Time alone/ Oh, time will tell/ Think you're in heaven but you're living in hell."
Though not released until 1978, the material for Kaya was recorded in early 1977, as a part of the studio sessions for Exodus--which means that these were among the songs he recorded shortly after the assassination attempt that nearly robbed Marley of his life. Taken in that context, "Time Will Tell" and "Running Away"--which finds Marley candidly examining his decision to leave Jamaica for London after getting shot and concluding to himself, "You can't run away from your sin," and "You must have done something wrong"--are harrowing reminders of the turmoil constantly going on underneath his cool exterior.
-Martin Brown, 2009
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