Bob Marley

In July 1977, Marley was found to have acral lentiginous melanoma, a form of malignant melanoma, in
a football wound - according to widely held urban legend, inflicted by broadcaster and pundit Danny
Baker[12] - on his right big toe. Marley refused amputation, because of the Rastafari belief that
the body must be "whole."

Marley may have seen medical doctors as samfai (tricksters, deceivers). True to this belief Marley
went against all surgical possibilities and sought out other means that would not break his
religious beliefs. He also refused to register a will, based on the Rastafari belief that writing a
will is acknowledging death as inevitable, thus disregarding the everlasting (or everliving, as
Rastas say) character of life.

The cancer then metastasized to Marley's brain, lungs, liver, and stomach. After playing two shows
at Madison Square Garden as part of his fall 1980 Uprising Tour, he collapsed while jogging in NYC's
Central Park. The remainder of the tour was subsequently cancelled.

Bob Marley played his final concert at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September
23, 1980. The live version of "Redemption Song" on Songs of Freedom was recorded at this show.[13]
Marley afterwards sought medical help from Munich specialist Josef Issels, but his cancer had
already progressed to the terminal stage.

While flying home from Germany to Jamaica for his final days, Marley became ill, and landed in Miami
for immediate medical attention. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami, Florida on the
morning of May 11, 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 May 21, 1981 which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition.
He was buried in a chapel near his birthplace with his Gibson Les Paul and a Bible. A month before
his death, he was awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit.

Marley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Time magazine chose Bob Marley &
The Wailers' Exodus as the greatest album of the 20th century.

In 2001, Marley 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.

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".