reggae-singers

"It's always good to revisit the past — to know where we are today."

"You can get it if you really want But you must try, try and try Try and try, you'll succeed at lastLook here Persecution you must bear Win or lose you've got to get your share Got your mind set on a dream You can get it, though harder they seem nowYou can get it if you really want"

"Man and woman, girl and boy Let us try to give a helping hand This I know and I'm sure That with love we all could understand This is our world, can't you see Everybody wants to live and be free"

"Take a look at the world And the state that it's in today I am sure you'll agree We all could make it a better way With our love put together Everybody learn to love each other Instead of fussing and fighting Cheating but biting Scandalizing and hating"

"Wonderful world, beautiful people You and your girl, things could be pretty But underneath this there is a secret That nobody can reveal"

"And this loneliness won't leave me alone It's such a drag to be on your own My woman left me and she didn't say why Well I guess, I have to cry"

"Many rivers to cross And it's only my will that keeps me alive I've been licked, washed up for years And I merely survive because of my pride"

"Many rivers to cross But I can't seem to find my way over Wandering I am lost As I travel along the white cliffs of Dover"

"Our concept of when someone cross over — we don't say they "pass away", we say "cross over", they just go to the other side of existence, there's no such thing as death — and then they go out there and they vibrate for however many days before they go to a higher height. But Toots, the way Toots lived his life, I'm sure his soul got to move on. The soul can reincarnate from 24 to 24,000 times, it depends how you lived your life. But with Toots, I can't see Toots coming back to this planet. He's evolved. He's completed his task that he has to do on this planet. His spirit will always be resonating with us … His soul will always be resonating with us and the people who loved his music."

"I grew up in a condition where I could have chosen to go either way — negatively or postively — and so I kind of chose to go positive — and that stayed with me through my life — always have to have a positive outlook on whatever situation there is — and so it comes out in my music."

"I am just the voice to the suffering voiceless. We have to speak up."

"What you don’t know or believe, you don’t venture into it."

"I was working like an elephant but eating like an ant, though I never complained."

"It is not an easy road at all. The industry is not easy. What I should say is that they should be very hard working and God fearing and to stay off drugs."

"if our music can be marketed internationally, there will be more money for our country in terms of exchange rate."

"No matter how it is, a boss is always a boss."

"In fact, when God created the world he kept the man and the woman together; he never created a separate world for women, so why should I alienate myself from them? Besides, showbiz without woman is without fun and with no money."

"People say 'la musique africaine', but I say 'les musiques africaines'. They refuse to recognize that Africa is a continent with a huge number of different cultures and languages and music. That's always been the difficulty of my career. People expect all Africans to have the same sound more or less, as if you can lump them all together."

"Your brain is your greatest weapon. Connect it to your heart, and you can go anywhere."

"I never use someone just because they are great musicians. I work with people who have the same kind of feeling towards the music that I do, and the subject that I’m speaking of at that time."

"We Africans have to be able to deal with our problems. Help from outside is alright, but we have to learn to be responsible for our own attitudes."

"It’s just that I love to sing. I love to bring Africa to the world. The beauty of Africa, not the music that people are very content about seeing and talking about."

"I come from this diversity and richness that's Benin, where there are fifty different languages. I speak four of them. I never know in advance which language will come when I start to write.The song leads me to the language."

"Everyone wins when children – and especially girls – have access to education. An educated girl is likely to increase her personal earning potential and prepare herself for a productive and fulfilling life, as well as reduce poverty in the whole community. Investing in girls’ education also helps delay early marriage and parenthood. Our booming economies in Africa need more female engineers, teachers and doctors to prosper and sustain growth."

"Benin has little tradition of harmony in the south where I come from. The north has a lot more, but the south has more rhythms, which are absolutely fantastic and people don't know them. There's one village specifically dedicated to the drum. When you get there you can go and choose your tree, cut it down and make your percussion from it. The challenge for me is adding the harmonies that the rhythms give."

"In song Here I Come, Here I Come (album) (1984-1985)."

"Two months later she said come and get your son"

"No no no You don't love me And I know now No no no You don't love me Yes, I know now 'Cause you left me, baby And I got no place to go now.No no no I'll do anything you say boy No no no I'll do anything you say boy 'Cause if you ask me, baby I'll get on my knees and pray boy."

"We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue, And then we'll take it higher."

"The more red meat and blood we eat, the more bloodthirsty we get, the more violent we get. The more vegetarian food that we eat, the more peace is taken into us."

"We JAH people can make it work."

"Don't gain the world and lose your soul Wisdom is better than silver and gold."

"Two thousand years of history Black History could not be wiped away so easily."

"And what has been hidden from the wise and the prudent been revealed in the mouth of the toddlers."

"Who are you to judge the life I live? I know that I'm not perfect and that I don't claim to be, so before you point your fingers make sure your hands are clean."

"They say: only the fittest of the fittest shall survive, stay alive!"

"Say you just can't live that negative way You know what I mean Make way for the positive day Cause it's a new day."

"Good friends we have had, oh good friends we've lost along the way In this bright future you can't forget your past So dry your tears I say No woman, no cry No woman, no cry Little darlin' don't shed no tears No woman, no cry"

"The more you accept herb, the more you accept Rastafari."

"The people who are trying to make this world worse are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness."

"I carried Bob Marley’s Redemption Song to every meeting I had with a politician, prime minister, or president. It was for me a prophetic utterance or as Bob would say "the small ax that could fell the big tree". The song reminded me that freedom always comes with a cost, but for those who would prepare to pay it, maybe "emancipation from mental slavery" would be our reward."

"I am Boutros Boutros-Ghali; put down your gun and listen to Bob Marley."

"I saw Marley a few months before he died in a concert at the Crystal Palace Bowl in South London. He was magisterial on that stage. His dreadlocks were shaken at the London Stock Exchange and at the Houses of Parliament. He stomped on the spot as if to put out the fire of despotism. He crooned some unforgettable lovers' lyrics as if to confirm that even the warrior has to love. His songs are anthems for me. They celebrate Africa, berate politicians, lament slavery, invigorate the spirit. Looking over the century as it closes, I see Marley up there with the best six popular songwriters - Gershwin, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Billie Holiday, the Beatles... I know we all have our own lists."

"You just mentioned Bob Marley — I can remember when I was in college, listening — and not agreeing with his whole philosophy necessarily, but raising my awareness of how people outside of our country were thinking about the struggles for jobs and dignity, and freedom."

"He had this idea. It was kind of a virologist idea. He believed that you could cure racism and hate... literally cure it, by injecting music and love into people's lives. When he was scheduled to perform at a peace rally, a gunman came to his house and shot him down. Two days later he walked out on that stage and sang. When they asked him why — He said, "The people who are trying to make this world worse are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness.""

"The U.S. empire rests on a grisly foundation: the massacre of millions of indigenous people, the stealing of their lands, and following this, the kidnapping and enslavement of millions of black people from Africa to work that land. Thousands died on the seas while they were being shipped like caged cattle between continents. "Stolen from Africa, brought to America"-Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier" contains a whole universe of unspeakable sadness. It tells of the loss of dignity, the loss of wilderness, the loss of freedom, the shattered pride of a people. Genocide and slavery provide the social and economic underpinning of the nation whose fundamental values reject hate, murderers, and evil."

"Ev'rything's gonna be alright So, no woman, no cry."

"All dese governments and dis this and that, these people that say they're here to help, why them say you cannot smoke the herb? Herb... herb is a plant, you know? And when me check it, me can't find no reason. All them say is, 'it make you rebel'. Against what?"

"Alcohol make you drunk, man. It don't make you meditate, it just make you drunk. Herb is more a consciousness."

"We don't have education, we have inspiration; if I was educated I would be a damn fool."