Bob Marley’s new flavour
AMERICAN ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s has strummed up a new flavour to mark the 30th anniversary
of reggae king Bob Marley’s best-selling reggae album Legend.
Satisfy My Bowl — a blend of chocolate caramel and cookie swirls with banana — is expected to go on sale across the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway on September 15.
Daughter of the Jamaican reggae star, Cedella Marley, is quoted on the website femalefirst.co.uk, as being elated at the partnership between the 1Love Foundation and the ice cream company.
“We’re celebrating our father’s legacy of bringing people together and using music to drive social change through a sweet partnership with Ben & Jerry’s,” Marley was quoted in the article as saying.
She said proceeds from a special-edition ice cream flavour will go towards igniting Jamaican youths’ creative skills to promote peace, love and social equality.
Released three years after Marley’s death in 1981, Legend — a compilation set — contains reggae classics including No Woman No Cry, One Love, Redemption Song, and Waiting In Vain. It was an instant hit and remains one of Billboard magazine’s best-selling catalogue albums with worldwide sales of over 25 million units.
Satisfy My Soul joins a long list of commercial projects associated with the Marley brand which includes a restaurant, coffee, and a musical. However, not all Marley merchandise has been a hit. A shoe line, launched in the 1990s, was shelved. Plans for a Marley beer never materialised.
In a recent article in Speakeasy magazine, Cedella Marley defended what is seen as an over-commercialisation of the brand.
“We have to remember Daddy was in the music business and it’s a business. At the same time, we keep the integrity of the man separate from the integrity of the musician,” she explained. “It’s a fine line because I don’t think lots of people know Daddy was a very smart businessman. He started his own record label, built his own studio, started his own distribution company where he was pressing records,” she added. “He was very strict when it came to his business. He was the first person to print a Bob Marley T-shirt [laughs], let’s not get it twisted! He would wear his own T-shirt because that is the music business.”
