Native name	''República de Angola''
Conventional long name	Republic of Angola
Common name	Angola
Image coat	Coat of arms of Angola.svg
Symbol type	Insignia
National anthem	''Angola Avante!''(Portuguese)''Forward Angola!''
Capital	Luanda
Largest city	capital
Official languages	Portuguese
National languages	Kikongo, Chokwe, Umbundu, Kimbundu, Ganguela, Kwanyama
Ethnic groups	Ovimbundu, Ambundu, Bakongo, Lunda-Chokwe, Nyaneka-Nkhumbi, Ovambo, Ganguela, Xindonga, Herero, Khoisan
Demonym	Angolan
Government type	Presidential republic
Leader title1	President
Leader name1	José Eduardo dos Santos
Leader title2	Vice President
Leader name2	Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos
Sovereignty type	Independence
Established event1	from Portugal
Established date1	November 11, 1975
Established date5
Area rank	23rd
Area magnitude	1 E12
Area km2	1246700
Area sq mi	481354
Percent water	negligible
Population estimate	18,498,000
Population estimate year	2009
Population census	(scheduled for 2012)
Population density km2	14.8
Population density sq mi	38.4
Population density rank	199th
Gdp ppp	$107.310 billion
Gdp ppp year	2010
Gdp ppp per capita	$5,632
Gdp nominal	$85.312 billion
Gdp nominal year	2010
Gdp nominal per capita	$4,477
Gini	59
Gini year	2000
Gini category	high
Hdi	0.403
Hdi rank	146th
Hdi year	2010
Hdi category	low
Currency	Kwanza
Currency code	AOA
Time zone	WAT
Utc offset	+1
Time zone dst	''not observed''
Utc offset dst	+1
Drives on	right
Cctld	.ao
Calling code	+244
Footnote7	}}

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola (, ; Kikongo, Kimbundu, Umbundu: Repubilika ya Ngola), is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city. The exclave province of Cabinda has borders with the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Portuguese were present in some—mostly coastal—points of the territory of what is now Angola, from the 16th to the 19th century, interacting in diverse ways with the peoples that lived there. In the 19th century they slowly and hesitantly began to establish themselves in the interior. Angola as a Portuguese colony was not established before the end of the 19th century, and "effective occupation", as required by the Berlin Conference (1884) was achieved in the 1920s as with most African colonies. After independence, Angola was the scene of an intense civil war from 1975 to 2002. The country has vast mineral and petroleum reserves; however, its life expectancy and infant mortality rates are both among the worst-ranked in the world.

History

Early migrations and political units

Khoisan hunter-gatherers are the earliest known modern human inhabitants of the area. They were largely replaced by Bantu tribes during the Bantu migrations, though small numbers remain in parts of southern Angola to the present day. The Bantu came from the north, probably from somewhere near the present-day Republic of Cameroon. When they reached what is now Angola, they encountered the Khoisan, Bushmen and other groups considerably less technologically advanced than themselves, whom they easily dominated with their superior knowledge of metal-working, ceramics and agriculture. The establishment of the Bantu took many centuries and gave rise to various groups who took on different ethnic characteristics.

During this period of time, the Bantu established a number of political units ("kingdoms", "empires") in most parts of what today is Angola. The best known of these is the Kingdom of the Kongo that had its centre in the northwest of contemporary Angola, but included important regions in the west of present day Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of Congo as well as in southern Gabon. It established trade routes with other trading cities and civilizations up and down the coast of southwestern and West Africa and even with the Great Zimbabwe Mutapa Empire, but engaged in little or no transoceanic trade.

Portuguese presence on the coast

The geographical areas now designated as Angola entered into contact with the Portuguese in the late 15th century, concretely in 1483, when Portugal established relations with the Kongo State, which stretched from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. In this context, they established a small trade post at the port of Mpinda, in Soyo. The Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais founded Luanda in 1575 as "São Paulo de Loanda", with a hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. Benguela, a Portuguese fort from 1587 which became a town in 1617, was another important early settlement they founded and ruled. The Portuguese would establish several settlements, forts and trading posts along the coastal strip of current-day Angola, which relied on slave trade, commerce in raw materials, and exchange of goods for survival. The African slave trade provided a large number of black slaves to Europeans and their African agents. For example, in what is now Angola, the Imbangala economy was heavily focused on the slave trade. European traders would export manufactured goods to the coast of Africa where they would be exchanged for slaves. Within the Portuguese Empire, most black African slaves were traded to Portuguese merchants who bought them to sell as cheap labour for use on Brazilian agricultural plantations. This trade would last until the first half of the 19th century. According to John Iliffe, "Portuguese records of Angola from the 16th century show that a great famine occurred on average every seventy years; accompanied by epidemic disease, it might kill one-third or one-half of the population, destroying the demographic growth of a generation and forcing colonists back into the river valleys."

The Portuguese gradually took control of the coastal strip during the 16th century by a series of treaties and wars forming the Portuguese colony of Angola. Taking advantage of the Portuguese Restoration War, the Dutch occupied Luanda from 1641 to 1648, where they allied with local peoples, consolidating their colonial rule against the remaining Portuguese resistance. In 1648, a fleet under the command of Salvador de Sá retook Luanda for Portugal and initiated a conquest of the lost territories, which restored Portugal to its former possessions by 1650. Treaties regulated relations with Kongo in 1649 and Njinga's Kingdom of Matamba and Ndongo in 1656. The conquest of Pungo Andongo in 1671 was the last major Portuguese expansion from Luanda outwards, as attempts to invade Kongo in 1670 and Matamba in 1681 failed. Portugal also expanded its territory behind the colony of Benguela to some extent, but until the 19th century the inroads from Luanda and Benguela were very limited, and Portugal had neither the intention nor the means to carry out a large scale territorial occupation and colonization.

Delimitation and occupation of Angola

The process resulted in few gains until the 1880s. Development of the hinterland began after the Berlin Conference in 1885 fixed the colony's borders, and British and Portuguese investment fostered mining, railways, and agriculture based on various forced labour systems. Full Portuguese administrative control of the hinterland did not occur until the beginning of the 20th century. In 1951, the colony was designated as an overseas province, called Overseas Province of Angola. Portugal had a presence in Angola for nearly five hundred years, and the population's initial reaction to calls for independence was scarce. More overtly political organisations first appeared in the 1950s, instigated by the USSR, and began to make organised demands for self determination, especially in international forums such as the Non-Aligned Movement.

The Portuguese regime, meanwhile, refused to accede to ths demands for independence, provoking an armed conflict that started in 1961 when black guerrillas attacked both white and black civilians in cross-border operations in northeastern Angola. The war came to be known as the Colonial War. In this struggle, the principal protagonists were the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), founded in 1956, the FNLA (National Front for the Liberation of Angola), which appeared in 1961, and UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), founded in 1966. After many years of conflict that lead to the weakening of all the insurgent parties, Angola gained its independence on 11 November 1975, after the 1974 coup d'état in Lisbon, Portugal, which overthrew the Portuguese regime headed by Marcelo Caetano.

Portugal's new revolutionary leaders began in 1974 a process of political change at home and accepted its former colonies' independence abroad. In Angola, a fight for the conquest of power broke out immediately between the three nationalist movements. The events prompted a mass exodus of Portuguese citizens, creating up to 300 000 destitute Portuguese refugees—the ''retornados''. The new Portuguese government tried to mediate an understanding between the three competing movements, and succeeded in agreeing, on paper, to form a common government, but in the end non of them respected the commitments made, and the issue was resolved by military force.

Independence and civil war

After independence in November 1975, Angola faced a devastating civil war which lasted several decades and claimed millions of lives and refugees. Following negotiations held in Portugal, itself under severe social and political turmoil and uncertainty due to the April 1974 revolution, Angola's three main guerrilla groups agreed to establish a transitional government in January 1975.

Within two months, however, the FNLA, MPLA and UNITA were fighting each other and the country was well on its way to being divided into zones controlled by rival armed political groups. The superpowers were quickly drawn into the conflict, which became a flash point for the Cold War. The United States, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Africa supported the FNLA and UNITA. The Soviet Union and Cuba supported the MPLA.

During most of this period, 1975–1990, the MPLA organised and maintained a socialist dictatorial regime, as well as a centrally planned cleptocratic economy. Despite the ongoing civil war, the model functioned to a certain degree, although it was foreseeable that it would eventually fail in face of UNITA opposition.

Ceasefire with UNITA

On February 22, 2002, after the MPLA regime come to terms with the USA, Jonas Savimbi, the leader of UNITA, was killed in combat with government troops. A cease-fire was reached by the two factions shortly afterwards. UNITA gave up its armed wing and assumed the role of major opposition party, although in the knowledge that in the present regime a legitimate democratic election is impossible. Although the political situation of the country began to stabilize, President Dos Santos has so far refused to institute regular democratic processes, UNITA head officials being given senior positions in top level companies. Among Angola's major problems are a serious humanitarian crisis (a result of the prolonged war), the abundance of minefields, the continuation of the political, and to a much lesser degree, military activities in favour of the independence of the northern exclave of Cabinda, carried out in the context of the protracted Cabinda Conflict by the Frente para a Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda, but most of all, the dilapidation of the country's rich mineral resources by the established cleptocratic regime. While most of the internally displaced have now settled around the capital, in the so called "Musseques", the general situation for Angolans remains desperate.

Politics

Angola's motto is ''Virtus Unita Fortior'', a Latin phrase meaning "Virtue is stronger when united." The executive branch of the government is composed of the President, the Vice-Presidents and the Council of Ministers. For decades, political power has been concentrated in the Presidency.

Governors of the 18 provinces are appointed by and serve at the pleasure of the president. The Constitutional Law of 1992 establishes the broad outlines of government structure and delineates the rights and duties of citizens. The legal system is based on Portuguese and customary law but is weak and fragmented, and courts operate in only 12 of more than 140 municipalities. A Supreme Court serves as the appellate tribunal; a Constitutional Court with powers of judicial review has not been constituted until 2010, despite statutory authorization.

After the end of the Civil War the regime came under pressure from within as well as from the international environment, to become more democratic and less authoritarian. Its reaction was to operate a number of changes without substantially changing its character.

Parliamentary elections held on 5 September 2008, announced MPLA as the winning party with 81% of votes. The closest opposition party was UNITA with 10%. These elections were the first since 1992 and were described as only partly free but certainly not as fair. A White Book on the elections in 2008 lists up all irregularities surrounding the Parliamentary elections of 2008.

Angola scored poorly on the 2008 Ibrahim Index of African Governance. It was ranked 44 from 48 sub-Saharan African countries, scoring particularly badly in the areas of Participation and Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development. The Ibrahim Index uses a number of different variables to compile its list which reflects the state of governance in Africa.

The new constitution, adopted in 2010, further sharpened the authoritarian character of the regime. In the future, there will be no presidential elections: the president and the vice-president of the political party which comes out strongest in the parliamentary elections become automatically president and vice-president of Angola. Through a variety of mechanisms, the state president controls all the other organs of the state, so that the principle of the division of power is not maintained. As a consequence, Angola has no longer a presidential system, in the sense of the systems existing e.g. in the USA or in France. In terms of the classifications used in constitutional law, its regime falls now in the same category as the "cesarist" monarchy of Napoléon Bonaparte in France, as António de Oliveira Salazar's "corporatist" system established by the Portuguese constitution of 1933, as the Brazilian military dictatorship based on the constitution of 1967/69, or as several authoritarian regimes in contemporary Africa.

Military

The Angolan Armed Forces (AAF) is headed by a Chief of Staff who reports to the Minister of Defense. There are three divisions—the Army (Exército), Navy (Marinha de Guerra, MGA), and National Air Force (Força Aérea Nacional, FAN). Total manpower is about 110,000. Its equipment includes Russian-manufactured fighters, bombers, and transport planes. There are also Brazilian-made EMB-312 Tucano for training role, Czech-made L-39 for training and bombing role, Czech Zlin for training role and a variety of western made aircraft such as C-212\Aviocar, Sud Aviation Alouette III, etc. A small number of AAF personnel are stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville).

Police

The National Police departments are: Public Order, Criminal Investigation, Traffic and Transport, Investigation and Inspection of Economic Activities, Taxation and Frontier Supervision, Riot Police and the Rapid Intervention Police. The National Police are in the process of standing up an air wing, which will provide helicopter support for police operations. The National Police are also developing their criminal investigation and forensic capabilities. The National Police has an estimated 6,000 patrol officers, 2,500 Taxation and Frontier Supervision officers, 182 criminal investigators and 100 financial crimes detectives and around 90 Economic Activity Inspectors.

The National Police have implemented a modernization and development plan to increase the capabilities and efficiency of the total force. In addition to administrative reorganization; modernization projects include procurement of new vehicles, aircraft and equipment, construction of new police stations and forensic laboratories, restructured training programs and the replacement of AKM rifles with 9 mm UZIs for police officers in urban areas.

Administrative divisions

Angola is divided into eighteen provinces (''províncias'') and 163 municipalities. The provinces are:

Bengo Benguela Bié Cabinda Cuando Cubango Cuanza Norte Cuanza Sul Cunene Huambo

Huila Luanda Lunda Norte Lunda Sul Malanje Moxico Namibe Uíge Zaire

Exclave of Cabinda

With an area of approximately , the Northern Angolan province of Cabinda is unique in being separated from the rest of the country by a strip, some wide, of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) along the lower Congo river. Cabinda borders the Congo Republic to the north and north-northeast and the DRC to the east and south. The town of Cabinda is the chief population center.

According to a 1995 census, Cabinda had an estimated population of 600,000, approximately 400,000 of whom live in neighboring countries. Population estimates are, however, highly unreliable. Consisting largely of tropical forest, Cabinda produces hardwoods, coffee, cocoa, crude rubber and palm oil. The product for which it is best known, however, is its oil, which has given it the nickname, "the Kuwait of Africa". Cabinda's petroleum production from its considerable offshore reserves now accounts for more than half of Angola's output. Most of the oil along its coast was discovered under Portuguese rule by the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (CABGOC) from 1968 onwards.

Ever since Portugal handed over sovereignty of its former overseas province of Angola to the local independence groups (MPLA, UNITA, and FNLA), the territory of Cabinda has been a focus of separatist guerrilla actions opposing the Government of Angola (which has employed its military forces, the FAA—Forças Armadas Angolanas) and Cabindan separatists. The Cabindan separatists, FLEC-FAC, announced a virtual Federal Republic of Cabinda under the Presidency of N'Zita Henriques Tiago. One of the characteristics of the Cabindan independence movement is its constant fragmentation, into smaller and smaller factions, in a process which although not totally fomented by the Angolan government, is undoubtedly encouraged and duly exploited by it.

Transport

Transport in Angola consists of:

Three separate railway systems totalling 2,761 km (1,715 mi)

of highway of which is paved

1,295 navigable inland waterways

Eight major sea ports

243 airports, of which 32 are paved.

Travel on highways outside of towns and cities in Angola (and in some cases within) is often not best advised for those without four-by-four vehicles. Whilst a reasonable road infrastructure has existed within Angola, time and the war have taken their toll on the road surfaces, leaving many severely potholed, littered with broken asphalt. In many areas drivers have established alternate tracks to avoid the worst parts of the surface, although careful attention must be paid to the presence or absence of landmine warning markers by the side of the road. The Angolan government has contracted the restoration of many of the country's roads. The road between Lubango and Namibe, for example, was completed recently with funding from the European Union, and is comparable to many European main routes. Progress to complete the road infrastructure is likely to take some decades, but substantial efforts are already being made in the right directions.

Geography

At , Angola is the world's twenty-third largest country (after Niger). It is comparable in size to Mali and is nearly twice the size of the US state of Texas, or five times the area of the United Kingdom. It lies mostly between latitudes 4° and 18°S, and longitudes 12° and 24°E.

Angola is bordered by Namibia to the south, Zambia to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north-east, and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west. The exclave of Cabinda also borders the Republic of the Congo to the north. Angola's capital, Luanda, lies on the Atlantic coast in the northwest of the country.

Climate

Angola's average temperature on the coast is in the winter and in the summer. It has two seasons; dry season (May to October) and hot rainy season (November to April).

Economy

Angola has a rich subsoil heritage, from diamonds, oil, gold, copper, as well as a rich wildlife (dramatically impoverished during the civil war), forest, and fossils. Since independence, oil and diamonds have been the most important economic resource. Smallholder and plantation agriculture have dramatically dropped because of the Angolan Civil War, but have begun to recover after 2002. The transformation industry that had come into existence in the late colonial period collapsed at independence, because of the exodus of most of the ethnic Portuguese population, but has begun to reemerge (with updated technologies), partly because of the influx of new Portuguese entrepreneurs. Similar developments can be verified in the service sector.

Overall, Angola's economy has undergone a period of transformation in recent years, moving from the disarray caused by a quarter century of civil war to being the fastest growing economy in Africa and one of the fastest in the world, with an average GDP growth of 20 percent between 2005 and 2007. During 2001–2010 Angola has the world's biggest Annual average GDP growth with 11.1 percent. In 2004, China's Eximbank approved a $2 billion line of credit to Angola. The loan is being used to rebuild Angola's infrastructure, and has also limited the influence of the International Monetary Fund in the country.

The Economist reported in 2008 that diamonds and oil make up 60 percent of Angola's economy, almost all of the country's revenue and are its dominate exports. Growth is almost entirely driven by rising oil production which surpassed in late 2005 and was expected to grow to by 2007. Control of the oil industry is consolidated in Sonangol Group, a conglomerate which is owned by the Angolan government. In December 2006, Angola was admitted as a member of OPEC. The economy grew 18% in 2005, 26% in 2006 and 17.6% in 2007. However, due to the global recession the economy contracted an estimated -0.3% in 2009. The security brought about by the 2002 peace settlement has led to the resettlement of 4 million displaced persons, thus resulting in large-scale increases in agriculture production.

Although the country's economy has developed very significantly since achieving political stability in 2002, mainly thanks to the fast-rising earnings of the oil sector, Angola faces huge social and economic problems. These are in part a result of the almost continual state of conflict from 1961 onwards, although the highest level of destruction and socio-economic damage took place after the 1975 independence, during the long years of civil war. However, high poverty rates and blatant social inequality are chiefly the outcome of a combination of a persistent political authoritarianism, of "neo-patrimonial" practices at all levels of the political, administrative, military, and economic apparatuses, and of a pervasive corruption. The main beneficiary of this situation is a social segment constituted since 1975, but mainly during the last decades, around the political, administrative, economic, and military power holders, which has accumulated (and continues accumulating) enormous wealth. "Secondary beneficiaries" are the middle strata which are about to become social classes. However, overall almost half the population has to be considered as poor, but in this respect there are dramatic differences between the countryside and the cities (where by now slightly more than 50% of the people live). An inquiry carried out in 2008 by the Angolan Instituto Nacional de Estatística has it that in the rural areas roughly 58% must be classified as "poor", according to UN norms, but in the urban areas only 19%, while the overall rate is 37%. In the cities, a majority of families, well beyond those officially classified as poor, have to adopt a variety of survival strategies. At the same time, in urban areas social inequality is most evident, and assumes extreme forms in the capital, Luanda. In the Human Development Index Angola constantly ranks in the bottom group.

According to The Heritage Foundation, a conservative American think tank, oil production from Angola has increased so significantly that Angola now is China's biggest supplier of oil.

Before independence in 1975, Angola was a breadbasket of southern Africa and a major exporter of bananas, coffee and sisal, but three decades of civil war (1975–2002) destroyed the fertile countryside, leaving it littered with landmines and driving millions into the cities. The country now depends on expensive food imports, mainly from South Africa and Portugal, while more than 90 percent of farming is done at family and subsistence level. Thousands of Angolan small-scale farmers are trapped in poverty.

A serious structural problem of the Angolan economy are the enormous differences between the regions. This is best illustrated by the fact that about one third of the economic activities is concentrated in Luanda and the neighbouring Bengo province, while several areas of the interior are characterized by stagnation and even regression.

Demographics

Angola's population is estimated to be 18,498,000 (2009). It is composed of Ovimbundu (language Umbundu) 37%, Ambundu (language Kimbundu) 25%, Bakongo 13%, and 32% other ethnic groups (including the Ovambo, the Ganguela and the Xindonga) as well as about 2% ''mestiços'' (mixed European and African) and 1% European The Ambundu and Ovimbundu nations combined form a majority of the population, at 62%. The population is forecast to grow to over 47 million people to 2060, nearly tripling

It is estimated that Angola was host to 12,100 refugees and 2,900 asylum seekers by the end of 2007. 11,400 of those refugees were originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo-Kinshasa) who arrived in the 1970s. As of 2008 there were an estimated 400,000 DRC migrant workers, at least 30,000 Portuguese, and more than 20,000 Chinese living in Angola. Prior to independence in 1975, Angola had a community of approximately 350,000 Portuguese.

Languages

The languages in Angola are those originally spoken by the different ethnic groups plus Portuguese due to its being a former Portuguese colony. The indigenous languages with the largest usage are Umbundu, Kimbundu, and Kikongo, in that order. Portuguese is the official language of the country.

However, in Angola the mastery of the official language is probably more extended than elsewhere in Africa, and this certainly applies to its use in everyday life. Moreover, and above all, the proportion of native (or near native) speakers of the official language is no doubt considerably higher than in any other African country.

There are three intertwined historical reasons for this situation. #In the Portuguese “bridgeheads” Luanda and Benguela, which existed on the coast of what today is Angola since the 15th and 16th century, respectively, Portuguese was spoken not only by the Portuguese and their ''mestiço'' descendents, but—especially in and around Luanda—by a significant number of Africans, although these always remained native speakers of their local African language. #Since the Portuguese conquest of the present territory of Angola, and especially since its “effective occupation” in the mid-1920s, schooling in Portuguese was slowly developed by the colonial state as well as by Catholic and Protestant missions. The rhythm of this expansion was considerably accelerated during the late colonial period, 1961–1974, so that by the end of the colonial period children all over the territory (with relatively few exceptions) had at least some access to the Portuguese language. #In the same late colonial period, the legal discrimination of the black population was abolished, and the state apparatus in fields like health, education, social work, and rural development was enlarged. This entailed a significant increase in jobs for Africans, under the condition that they spoke Portuguese.

As a consequence of all this, the African “lower middle class” which at that stage formed in Luanda and other cities began to often prevent their children from learning the local African language, in order to guarantee that they learned Portuguese as their native language. At the same time, the white and ‘’mestiço’’ population, where some knowledge of African languages could previously often been found, neglected this aspect more and more, to the point of frequently ignoring it totally. After independence, these tendencies continued, and were even strengthened, under the rule of the MPLA which has its main social roots exactly in those social segments where the mastery of Portuguese as well as the proportion of native Portuguese speakers was highest. This became a political side issue, as FNLA as well as UNITA, given their regional constituencies, came out in favour of a greater attention to the African languages, and as the FNLA favoured French over Portuguese.

The dynamics of the language situation, as described above, were additionally fostered by the massive migrations triggered by the Civil War. Ovimbundu, the most populous ethnic group and the most affected by the war, appeared in great numbers in urban areas outside their areas, especially in Luanda and surroundings. At the same time, a majority of the Bakongo who had fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the early 1960s, or of their children and grandchildren, returned to Angola, but mostly did not settle in their original "habitat", but in the cities—and again above all in Luanda. As a consequence, more than half the population is now living in the cities which, from the linguistic point of view, have become highly heterogeneous. This means, of course, that Portuguese as the overall language of communication is by now of paramount importance, and that the role of the African languages is steadily decreasing among the urban population—a trend which is beginning to spread into rural areas as well.

The exact numbers of those fluent in Portuguese or who speak Portuguese as a first language are unknown, although a census is expected to be carried out in 2013. Quite a number of voices demand the recognition of “Angolan Portuguese” as a specific variant, comparable to those spoken in Portugal or in Brazil. However, while there exists a certain number of idiomatic particularities in everyday Portuguese, as spoken by Angolans, it remains to be seen whether or not the Angolan government comes to the conclusion that these particularities constitute a configuration that justifies the claim to be a new language variant.

Religion

There are about 1000 mostly Christian religious communities in Angola. While reliable statistics are entirely nonexistent, estimates have it that more than half of the population are Roman Catholics, while about a quarter adhere to the protestant churches introduced during the colonial period: the Congregationalists mainly among the Ovimbundu of the Central Highlands and the coastal region to its West, the Methodists concentrating on the Kimbundu speaking strip from Luanda to Malanje, the Baptists almost exclusively among the Bakongo of the Northwest (now massively present in Luanda as well) and dispersed Adventists, Reformed and Lutherans. In Luanda and region there subsists a nucleus of the "syncretic" Tocoists and in the Northwest a sprinkling of Kimbanguism can be found, spreading from the Congo/Zaire. Since independence, hundreds of Pentecostal and similar communities have sprung up in the cities, where by now about 50% of the population is living; several of these communities/churches are of Brazilian origin. The Muslims, practically all of them immigrants from West African and other countries and belonging to the Sunnite branch, represent only about 1%; because of their diversity, they do not form a community. Saudi Arabia is at present developing an effort to enlarge their numbers, and intends to build an Islamic university in Luanda. The proportion of non-believers is significant, but impossible to be estimated. "Traditional African" religions exist only residually, in the main confined to some remote rural areas.

In a study assessing nations' levels of religious regulation and persecution with scores ranging from 0–10 where 0 represented low levels of regulation or persecution, Angola was scored 0.8 on Government Regulation of Religion, 4.0 on Social Regulation of Religion, 0 on Government Favoritism of Religion and 0 on Religious Persecution.

Foreign missionaries were very active prior to independence in 1975, although since the beginning of the anti-colonial fight in 1961 the Portuguese colonial authorities expelled a series of Protestant missionaries and closed mission stations based on the belief that the missionaries were inciting pro-independence sentiments. Missionaries have been able to return to the country since the early 1990s, although security conditions due to the civil war have prevented them until 2002 from restoring many of their former inland mission stations.

The Roman Catholic and some major Protestant denominations mostly keep to themselves in contrast to the "New Churches" which actively proselytize. The Roman Catholic as well as some major Protestant denominations provide help for the poor in the form of crop seeds, farm animals, medical care and education.

Health

A 2007 survey concluded that low and deficient niacin status was common in Angola. Epidemics of cholera, malaria, rabies and African hemorrhagic fevers like Marburg hemorrhagic fever, are common diseases in several parts of the country. Many regions in this country have high incidence rates of tuberculosis and high HIV prevalence rates. Dengue, filariasis, leishmaniasis, and onchocerciasis (river blindness) are other diseases carried by insects that also occur in the region. Angola has one of the highest infant mortality rate in the world and one of the world's lowest life expectancy. Demographic and Health Surveys is currently conducting several surveys in Angola on Malaria, Domestic Violence and more.

Education

Although by law, education in Angola is compulsory and free for eight years, the government reports that a certain percentage of students are not attending school due to a lack of school buildings and teachers. Students are often responsible for paying additional school-related expenses, including fees for books and supplies.

In 1999, the gross primary enrollment rate was 74 percent and in 1998, the most recent year for which data are available, the net primary enrollment rate was 61 percent. Gross and net enrollment ratios are based on the number of students formally registered in primary school and therefore do not necessarily reflect actual school attendance. There continue to be significant disparities in enrollment between rural and urban areas. In 1995, 71.2 percent of children ages 7 to 14 years were attending school. It is reported that higher percentages of boys attend school than girls. During the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), nearly half of all schools were reportedly looted and destroyed, leading to current problems with overcrowding.

The Ministry of Education hired 20,000 new teachers in 2005, and continued to implement teacher trainings. Teachers tend to be underpaid, inadequately trained, and overworked (sometimes teaching two or three shifts a day). Some teachers may also reportedly demand payment or bribes directly from their students. Other factors, such as the presence of landmines, lack of resources and identity papers, and poor health also prevent children from regularly attending school. Although budgetary allocations for education were increased in 2004, the education system in Angola continues to be extremely under-funded.

Literacy is quite low, with 67.4% of the population over the age of 15 able to read and write in Portuguese. 82.9% of males and 54.2% of women are literate as of 2001. Since independence from Portugal in 1975, a number of Angolan students continued to be admitted every year at high schools, polytechnical institutes, and universities in Portugal, Brazil and Cuba through bilateral agreements; in general, these students belong to the Angolan elites.

Culture

Portugal has been present in Angola for 400 years, occupied the territory in the 19th and early 20th century, and ruled over it for about 50 years. As a consequence, both countries share cultural aspects: language (Portuguese) and main religion (Roman Catholic Christianity). Of course, the "substrate" of Angolan culture is African, mostly Bantu, while Portuguese culture has been imported. The diverse ethnic communities - the Ovimbundu, Ambundu, Bakongo, Chokwe, and other peoples - maintain to varying degrees their own cultural traits, traditions and languages, but in the cities, where slightly more than half of the population now lives, a mixed culture has been emerging since colonial times - in Luanda since its foundation in the XVIth century. In this urban culture, the Portuguese heritage has become more and more dominant. An African influence is evident in music and dance, and is moulding the way in which Portuguese is spoken, but is almost disappearing from the vocabulary. This process is well reflected in contemporary Angolan literature, especially in the works of Pepetela ans Ana Paula Ribeiro Tavares.

Gallery

See also

References

Much of the material in this article comes from the CIA World Factbook 2000 and the 2003 U.S. Department of State website.

Further reading

External links

Key Development Forecasts for Angola

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honorific-prefix	The Honourable
name	Bob Marley
alt	Black and white picture of a man with long dreadlocks playing the guitar on stage.
background	solo_singer
birth name	Robert Nesta Marley
alias	Tuff Gong
birth date	February 06, 1945
birth place	Nine Mile, Saint Ann, Jamaica
death date	May 11, 1981
death place	Miami, Florida, U.S.
instrument	Vocals, guitar, piano, saxophone, harmonica, percussion
genre	Reggae, ska, rocksteady
occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician
years active	1962–1981
label	Studio One, Upsetter, Tuff Gong
associated acts	Bob Marley & The Wailers, Wailers Band, The Upsetters, I Threes
website
notable instruments	Gibson Les Paul Special }}

Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers (1963–1981). Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited with helping spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience.

Marley's music was heavily influenced by the social issues of his homeland, and he is considered to have given voice to the specific political and cultural nexus of Jamaica. His best-known hits include "I Shot the Sheriff", "No Woman, No Cry", "Could You Be Loved", "Stir It Up", "Get Up Stand Up", "Jamming", "Redemption Song", "One Love" and, "Three Little Birds", as well as the posthumous releases "Buffalo Soldier" and "Iron Lion Zion". The compilation album ''Legend'' (1984), released three years after his death, is reggae's best-selling album, going ten times Platinum which is also known as one Diamond in the U.S., and selling 25 million copies worldwide.

Early life and career

Bob Marley was born in the village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica as Nesta Robert Marley. A Jamaican passport official would later swap his first and middle names. His father, Norval Sinclair Marley, was a white Jamaican of mixed and English descent whose family came from Sussex, England. Norval was a captain in the Royal Marines, as well as a plantation overseer, when he married Cedella Booker, an Afro-Jamaican then 18 years old. Norval provided financial support for his wife and child, but seldom saw them, as he was often away on trips. In 1955, when Bob Marley was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age 70. Marley faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his life. He once reflected:

I don't have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't deh pon nobody's side. Me don't deh pon the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me deh pon God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.

Although Marley recognised his mixed ancestry, throughout his life and because of his beliefs, he self-identified as a black African, following the ideas of Pan-African leaders. Marley stated that his two biggest influences were the African-centered Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie. A central theme in Bob Marley's message was the repatriation of black people to Zion, which in his view was Ethiopia, or more generally, Africa. In songs such as "Black Survivor", "Babylon System", and "Blackman Redemption", Marley sings about the struggles of blacks and Africans against oppression from the West or "Babylon".

Marley and his step brother Bunny Wailer (Bob's mother had a daughter with Bunny's father, younger sister to both of them) started to play music while he was still at school, which he left at the age of 14 to make music with Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafari. At a jam session with Higgs and Livingston, Marley met Peter McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh), who had similar musical ambitions. In 1962, Marley recorded his first two singles, "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", with local music producer Leslie Kong. These songs, released on the Beverley's label under the pseudonym of Bobby Martell, attracted little attention. The songs were later re-released on the box set ''Songs of Freedom'', a posthumous collection of Marley's work. Marley was also known to use an Epiphone guitar for much of his career.

Bob Marley & The Wailers

1963–1974

In 1963, Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith formed a ska and rocksteady group, calling themselves "The Teenagers". They later changed their name to "The Wailing Rudeboys", then to "The Wailing Wailers", at which point they were discovered by record producer Coxsone Dodd, and finally to "The Wailers". By 1966, Braithwaite, Kelso, and Smith had left The Wailers, leaving the core trio of Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, and Peter Tosh.

In 1966, Marley married Rita Anderson, and moved near his mother's residence in Wilmington, Delaware in the United States for a short time, during which he worked as a DuPont lab assistant and on the assembly line at a Chrysler plant, under the alias Donald Marley.

Though raised in the Catholic tradition, Marley became captivated by Rastafarian beliefs in the 1960s, when away from his mother's influence. Formally converted to Rastafari after returning to Jamaica, Marley began to wear his trademark dreadlocks (''see the ''religion section'' for more on Marley's religious views''). After a conflict with Dodd, Marley and his band teamed up with Lee "Scratch" Perry and his studio band, The Upsetters. Although the alliance lasted less than a year, they recorded what many consider The Wailers' finest work. Marley and Perry split after a dispute regarding the assignment of recording rights, but they would remain friends and work together again.

Between 1968 and 1972, Bob and Rita Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer re-cut some old tracks with JAD Records in Kingston and London in an attempt to commercialise The Wailers' sound. Bunny later asserted that these songs "should never be released on an album ... they were just demos for record companies to listen to". Also in 1968, Bob and Rita visited the Bronx to see Johnny Nash's songwriter Jimmy Norman. A three-day jam session with Norman and others, including Norman's co-writer Al Pyfrom, resulted in a 24-minute tape of Marley performing several of his own and Norman-Pyfrom's compositions. This tape is, according to Reggae archivist Roger Steffens, rare in that it was influenced by pop rather than reggae, as part of an effort to break Marley into the American charts. According to an article in ''The New York Times'', Marley experimented on the tape with different sounds, adopting a doo-wop style on "Stay With Me" and "the slow love song style of 1960's artists" on "Splish for My Splash". An artist yet to establish himself outside his native Jamaica, Marley lived in Ridgmount Gardens, Bloomsbury, London during 1972.

In 1972, the Wailers entered into an ill-fated deal with CBS Records and embarked on a tour with American soul singer Johnny Nash. Broke, the Wailers became stranded in London. Marley turned up at Island Records founder and producer Chris Blackwell's London office, and asked him to advance the cost of a new single. Since Jimmy Cliff, Island's top reggae star, had recently left the label, Blackwell was primed for a replacement. In Marley, Blackwell recognized the elements needed to snare the rock audience: "I was dealing with rock music, which was really rebel music. I felt that would really be the way to break Jamaican music. But you needed someone who could be that image. When Bob walked in he really was that image." Blackwell told Marley he wanted The Wailers to record a complete album (essentially unheard of at the time). When Marley told him it would take between £3,000 and £4,000, Blackwell trusted him with the greater sum. Despite their "rude boy" reputation, the Wailers returned to Kingston and honored the deal, delivering the album ''Catch A Fire''.

Primarily recorded on eight-track at Harry J's in Kingston, ''Catch A Fire'' marked the first time a reggae band had access to a state-of-the-art studio and were accorded the same care as their rock'n'roll peers. Blackwell desired to create "more of a drifting, hypnotic-type feel than a reggae rhythm", and restructured Marley's mixes and arrangements. Marley travelled to London to supervise Blackwell's overdubbing of the album, which included tempering the mix from the bass-heavy sound of Jamaican music, and omitting two tracks.

The Wailers' first major label album, ''Catch a Fire'' was released worldwide in April 1973, packaged like a rock record with a unique Zippo lighter lift-top. Initially selling 14,000 units, it didn't make Marley a star, but received a positive critical reception. It was followed later that year by ''Burnin''', which included the standout songs "Get Up, Stand Up", and "I Shot the Sheriff", which appealed to the ear of Eric Clapton. He recorded a cover of the track in 1974 which became a huge American hit, raising Marley's international profile. Many Jamaicans were not keen on the new "improved" reggae sound on ''Catch A Fire'', but the Trenchtown style of ''Burnin''' found fans across both reggae and rock audiences.

During this period, Blackwell gifted his Kingston residence and company headquarters at 56 Hope Road (then known as Island House) to Marley. Housing Tuff Gong Studios, the property became not only Marley's office, but also his home.

The Wailers were scheduled to open 17 shows for the number one black act in the States, Sly and the Family Stone. After 4 shows, the band was fired because they were more popular than the acts they were opening for. The Wailers broke up in 1974 with each of the three main members pursuing solo careers. The reason for the breakup is shrouded in conjecture; some believe that there were disagreements amongst Bunny, Peter, and Bob concerning performances, while others claim that Bunny and Peter simply preferred solo work.

1974–1981

Despite the break-up, Marley continued recording as "Bob Marley & The Wailers". His new backing band included brothers Carlton and Aston "Family Man" Barrett on drums and bass respectively, Junior Marvin and Al Anderson on lead guitar, Tyrone Downie and Earl "Wya" Lindo on keyboards, and Alvin "Seeco" Patterson on percussion. The "I Threes", consisting of Judy Mowatt, Marcia Griffiths, and Marley's wife, Rita, provided backing vocals. In 1975, Marley had his international breakthrough with his first hit outside Jamaica, "No Woman, No Cry", from the ''Natty Dread'' album. This was followed by his breakthrough album in the United States, ''Rastaman Vibration'' (1976), which spent four weeks on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. On 3 December 1976, two days before "Smile Jamaica", a free concert organised by the Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley in an attempt to ease tension between two warring political groups, Marley, his wife, and manager Don Taylor were wounded in an assault by unknown gunmen inside Marley's home. Taylor and Marley's wife sustained serious injuries, but later made full recoveries. Bob Marley received minor wounds in the chest and arm. The shooting was thought to have been politically motivated, as many felt the concert was really a support rally for Manley. Nonetheless, the concert proceeded, and an injured Marley performed as scheduled, two days after the attempt. When asked why, Marley responded, "The people who are trying to make this world worse aren’t taking a day off. How can I?" The members of the group Zap Pow, which had no radical religious or political beliefs, played as Bob Marley's backup band before a festival crowd of 80,000 while members of The Wailers were still missing or in hiding.

Marley left Jamaica at the end of 1976, and after a month-long "recovery and writing" sojourn at the site of Chris Blackwell's Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, arrived in England, where he spent two years in self-imposed exile. Whilst there he recorded the albums ''Exodus'' and ''Kaya''. ''Exodus'' stayed on the British album charts for 56 consecutive weeks. It included four UK hit singles: "Exodus", "Waiting in Vain", "Jamming", and "One Love" (a rendition of Curtis Mayfield's hit, "People Get Ready"). During his time in London, he was arrested and received a conviction for possession of a small quantity of cannabis. In 1978, Marley returned to Jamaica and performed at another political concert, the One Love Peace Concert, again in an effort to calm warring parties. Near the end of the performance, by Marley's request, Michael Manley (leader of then-ruling People's National Party) and his political rival Edward Seaga (leader of the opposing Jamaica Labour Party), joined each other on stage and shook hands.

Under the name Bob Marley and the Wailers eleven albums were released, four live albums and seven studio albums. The releases included ''Babylon by Bus'', a double live album with thirteen tracks, were released in 1978 and received critical acclaim. This album, and specifically the final track "Jamming" with the audience in a frenzy, captured the intensity of Marley's live performances.

''Survival'', a defiant and politically charged album, was released in 1979. Tracks such as "Zimbabwe", "Africa Unite", "Wake Up and Live", and "Survival" reflected Marley's support for the struggles of Africans. His appearance at the Amandla Festival in Boston in July 1979 showed his strong opposition to South African apartheid, which he already had shown in his song "War" in 1976. In early 1980, he was invited to perform at the 17 April celebration of Zimbabwe's Independence Day. ''Uprising'' (1980) was Bob Marley's final studio album, and is one of his most religious productions; it includes "Redemption Song" and "Forever Loving Jah". ''Confrontation'', released posthumously in 1983, contained unreleased material recorded during Marley's lifetime, including the hit "Buffalo Soldier" and new mixes of singles previously only available in Jamaica.

Personal life

Religion

Bob Marley was a member of the Rastafari movement, whose culture was a key element in the development of reggae. Bob Marley became an ardent proponent of Rastafari, taking their music out of the socially deprived areas of Jamaica and onto the international music scene. He once gave the following response, which was typical, to a question put to him during a recorded interview:

Interviewer: "Can you tell the people what it means being a Rastafarian?"

Bob: "I would say to the people, Be still, and know that His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is the Almighty. Now, the Bible seh so, Babylon newspaper seh so, and I and I the children seh so. Yunno? So I don't see how much more reveal our people want. Wha' dem want? a white God, well God come black. True true." Observant of the Rastafari practice Ital, a diet that shuns meat, Marley was a vegetarian. According to his biographers, he affiliated with the Twelve Tribes Mansion. He was in the denomination known as "Tribe of Joseph", because he was born in February (each of the twelve sects being composed of members born in a different month). He signified this in his album liner notes, quoting the portion from ''Genesis'' that includes Jacob's blessing to his son Joseph. Marley was baptised by the Archbishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Kingston, Jamaica, on 4 November 1980.

Family

Bob Marley had a number of children: three with his wife Rita, two adopted from Rita's previous relationships, and several others with different women. The Bob Marley official website acknowledges eleven children.

Those listed on the official site are: # Sharon, born 23 November 1964, to Rita in previous relationship # Cedella born 23 August 1967, to Rita # David "Ziggy", born 17 October 1968, to Rita # Stephen, born 20 April 1972, to Rita # Robert "Robbie", born 16 May 1972, to Pat Williams # Rohan, born 19 May 1972, to Janet Hunt # Karen, born 1973 to Janet Bowen # Stephanie, born 17 August 1974; according to Cedella Booker she was the daughter of Rita and a man called Ital with whom Rita had an affair; nonetheless she was acknowledged as Bob's daughter # Julian, born 4 June 1975, to Lucy Pounder # Ky-Mani, born 26 February 1976, to Anita Belnavis # Damian, born 21 July 1978, to Cindy Breakspeare

Makeda was born on 30 May 1981, to Yvette Crichton, after Marley's death. Meredith Dixon's book lists her as Marley's child, but she is not listed as such on the Bob Marley official website.

Various websites, for example, also list Imani Carole, born 22 May 1963 to Cheryl Murray; but she does not appear on the official Bob Marley website.

Final years and death

In July 1977, Marley was found to have a type of malignant melanoma under the nail of one of his toes. Contrary to urban legend, this lesion was not primarily caused by an injury during a football match in that year, but was instead a symptom of the already existing cancer. Marley turned down doctors' advice to have his toe amputated, citing his religious beliefs. Despite his illness, he continued touring and was in the process of scheduling a world tour in 1980. The intention was for Inner Circle to be his opening act on the tour but after their lead singer Jacob Miller died in Jamaica in March 1980 after returning from a scouting mission in Brazil this was no longer mentioned.

The album ''Uprising'' was released in May 1980 (produced by Chris Blackwell), on which "Redemption Song" is particularly considered to be about Marley coming to terms with his mortality. The band completed a major tour of Europe, where they played their biggest concert, to a hundred thousand people in Milan. After the tour Marley went to America, where he performed two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of the Uprising Tour.

The final concert of Bob Marley's career was held 23 September 1980 at the Stanley Theater (now called The Benedum Center For The Performing Arts) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The audio recording of that concert is now available on CD, vinyl, and digital music services.

Shortly after, Marley's health deteriorated and he became very ill; the cancer had spread throughout his body. The rest of the tour was cancelled and Marley sought treatment at the Bavarian clinic of Josef Issels, where he received a controversial type of cancer therapy (Issels treatment) partly based on avoidance of certain foods, drinks, and other substances. After fighting the cancer without success for eight months, Marley boarded a plane for his home in Jamaica.

While flying home from Germany to Jamaica, Marley's vital functions worsened. After landing in Miami, Florida, he was taken to the hospital for immediate medical attention. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami (now University of Miami Hospital) on the morning of 11 May 1981, at the age of 36. The spread of melanoma to his lungs and brain caused his death. His final words to his son Ziggy were "Money can't buy life". Marley received a state funeral in Jamaica on 21 May 1981, which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition. He was buried in a chapel near his birthplace with his red Gibson Les Paul (some accounts say it was a Fender Stratocaster).

On 21 May 1981, Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga delivered the final funeral eulogy to Marley, declaring:

Legacy

In 1999 ''Time'' magazine chose Bob Marley & The Wailers' ''Exodus'' as the greatest album of the 20th century. In 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and a feature-length documentary about his life, ''Rebel Music'', won various awards at the Grammys. With contributions from Rita, The Wailers, and Marley's lovers and children, it also tells much of the story in his own words. A statue was inaugurated, next to the national stadium on Arthur Wint Drive in Kingston to commemorate him. In 2006, the State of New York renamed a portion of Church Avenue from Remsen Avenue to East 98th Street in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn "Bob Marley Boulevard". In 2008, a statue of Marley was inaugurated in Banatski Sokolac, Serbia.

Internationally, Marley’s message also continues to reverberate amongst various indigenous communities. For instance, the Aboriginal people of Australia continue to burn a sacred flame to honor his memory in Sydney’s Victoria Park, while members of the Native American Hopi and Havasupai tribe revere his work. There are also many tributes to Bob Marley throughout India, including restaurants, hotels, and cultural festivals.

Marley has also evolved into a global symbol, which has been endlessly merchandised through a variety of mediums. In light of this, author Dave Thompson in his book ''Reggae and Caribbean Music'', laments what he perceives to be the commercialized pacification of Marley's more militant edge, stating:

Film adaptations

In February 2008, director Martin Scorsese announced his intention to produce a documentary movie on Marley. The film was set to be released on 6 February 2010, on what would have been Marley's 65th birthday. However, Scorsese dropped out due to scheduling problems. He was replaced by Jonathan Demme, who dropped out due to creative differences with producer Steve Bing during the beginning of editing. Kevin Macdonald replaced Demme and the film, ''Marley'', was released on 20 April 2012.

In March 2008, The Weinstein Company announced its plans to produce a biopic of Bob Marley, based on the book ''No Woman No Cry: My Life With Bob Marley'' by Rita Marley. Rudy Langlais will produce the script by Lizzie Borden and Rita Marley will be executive producer.

Ex-girlfriend and filmmaker Esther Anderson, along with Gian Godoy, made the documentary ''Bob Marley: The Making of a Legend'', which premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2011.

Discography

''The Wailing Wailers'' (1965)

''The Best of The Wailers'' (1970)

''Soul Rebels'' (1970)

''Soul Revolution'' (1971)

''Catch a Fire'' (1973)

''Burnin''' (1973)

''Natty Dread'' (1974)

''Rastaman Vibration'' (1976)

''Exodus'' (1977)

''Kaya'' (1978)

''Survival'' (1979)

''Uprising'' (1980)

''Confrontation'' (1983)

Awards and honors

1976: Band of the Year (''Rolling Stone'').

June 1978: Awarded the Peace Medal of the Third World from the United Nations.

February 1981: Awarded Jamaica's third highest honour, the Jamaican Order of Merit.

March 1994: Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1999: Album of the Century for ''Exodus'' by ''Time Magazine''.

February 2001: A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

February 2001: Awarded Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

2004: ''Rolling Stone'' ranked him No.11 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

"One Love" named song of the millennium by BBC.

Voted as one of the greatest lyricists of all time by a BBC poll. 2006: A blue plaque was unveiled at his first UK residence in Ridgmount Gardens, London, dedicated to him by Nubian Jak community trust and supported by Her Majesty's Foreign Office. 2010: "Catch a Fire" inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame (Reggae Album).

References

Further reading

Farley, Christopher (2007). ''Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley'', Amistad Press ISBN 0-06-053992-5

Goldman, Vivien (2006). ''The Book of Exodus: The Making and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Wailers' Album of the Century'', Aurum Press ISBN 1-84513-210-6

Marley, Rita; Jones, Hettie (2004) ''No Woman No Cry: My Life with Bob Marley'' Hyperion Books ISBN 0-7868-8755-9

Masouri, John (2007) ''Wailing Blues: The Story of Bob Marley's "Wailers"'' Wise Publications ISBN 1-84609-689-8

External links

The Bob Marley Foundation

Online Home of the Marleys

Bob Marley at ''Rolling Stone''

Marley Elected one of the Greatest Songwriters BBC News, 23 May 2001

Showcase: Bob Marley by James Estrin, ''The New York Times'', 18 May 2009

Interview with Heather Marley in Bob Marley Magazine

Extensive discography

Category:1945 births Category:1981 deaths Category:Anti-apartheid activists Category:Attempted assassination survivors Category:Cancer deaths in Florida Category:Cannabis culture Category:Converts to Christianity Category:Converts to the Rastafari movement Category:Deaths from skin cancer Category:Ethiopian Orthodox Christians Category:Former Roman Catholics Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Jamaican expatriates in the United Kingdom Category:Jamaican expatriates in the United States Category:Jamaican male singers Category:Jamaican people of English descent Category:Jamaican people of European descent Category:Jamaican people of African descent Category:Jamaican Rastafarians Category:Jamaican reggae singers Category:Jamaican songwriters Category:Jamaican vegetarians B Category:Pan-Africanism Category:Performers of Rastafarian music Category:People from Saint Ann Parish Category:People from Wilmington, Delaware Category:Resonator guitarists Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Shooting survivors Category:The Wailers members

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