{"id":3203,"date":"2012-06-07T08:56:59","date_gmt":"2012-06-07T12:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/?p=3203"},"modified":"2022-01-18T14:28:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T22:28:23","slug":"bob-marley-belly-full-black-music-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/?p=3203","title":{"rendered":"Bob Marley &#124; Them Belly Full &#124; Black Music Month"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Marley.jpg\"><\/span><br \/>\nThe amazing thing about Bob Marley was how he always seemed to be right. Granted, he wasn\u2019t spitting complex theses that invited much argument. His thoughts were typically basic, inarguable truisms.<br \/>\nIt got no truer than \u201cThem Belly Full (But We Hungry).\u201d<br \/>\nThem belly full<br \/>\nbut we hungry<br \/>\nA hungry mob<br \/>\nis an angry mob<br \/>\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/embed.spotify.com\/?uri=spotify:track:2Ezmm08Oy4772SkEoC18Kt\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nI mean, do we need to say anything else? It was Bob at his most foreboding and obvious, but somehow as profound as anything he ever said. It managed to put the racism and oppression of Jamaica &#8212; and anywhere else, really &#8212; in stark terms that exposed those on the side of wrong as not just devilish, but also dumb.<br \/>\nWith the backdrop of the Caribbean\u2019s absurd levels of income inequality, this was a calm and measured warning. Keep messing with us, and we\u2019ll burn this thing down. That\u2019s not exactly what he said. No, that was \u201cBurnin\u2019 and Lootin\u2019,\u201d but that was certainly his point on \u201cThem Belly Full.\u201d If those with don\u2019t learn to share, those without are gonna come take it. It may not happen today, or maybe not tomorrow, but it\u2019s coming. There would be no other reasonable outcome from this situation. This is how people respond when they\u2019ve been kicked. At some point, the kicking will stop. Can\u2019t dance the pain away but for so long. When the \u201ccost of living get so high,\u201d dying can seem like a risk worth taking.<br \/>\nWe all know this to be true. Yet and still, people keep kicking. Why? Because they feel like it. That can be the only reason when the act itself is so doomed. The fight itself won\u2019t last long, but it\u2019ll cost more than it would to share.<br \/>\n<strong>::Receive Bomani\u2019s Blog, Videos, and Podcast.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/j.mp\/emailjonesblog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Subscribe to The Email Jones<\/a>.<\/strong><br \/>\nYet so many are full while others are hungry.<br \/>\nWhile the image of Marley is always couched in revolution, \u201cThem Belly Full\u201d almost speaks to the opposite. It acknowledges a resignation to withstanding poverty, and it\u2019s built around the simple coping mechanisms of the downtrodden. There is nothing about actually fighting. But it\u2019s damn sure around the corner.<br \/>\nThat was the genius of Marley. He wasn\u2019t soft, but he couldn\u2019t have gotten away with anything as explicitly combative as, say, The Clash\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/3RIt9u0oTpxdiABNexYmns\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Guns of Brixton<\/a>.\u201d He had to convey his message similarly to how civil rights workers did in the American South. The message had to be pure. It had to be based in a universally recognized philosophy (even if the spiritual basis, Rastafarianism, wasn\u2019t embraced the same way). He couldn\u2019t just challenge. He had to dare those on the side of wrong to challenge themselves.<br \/>\nSometimes those appeals would be emotional. On \u201cThem Belly Full,\u201d it was pragmatic. The emotion was unnecessary. The coldness of the verses spoke to the fire beneath them. The dancing on the hook almost seemed like The Wailers were stepping outside before they really got pissed.<br \/>\nBut the point was made. And, as always, Bob was right. We\u2019ve seen it all over the world. At some point, someone will realize cats like Marley weren\u2019t playing. They were doing the very real job of reminding power that the world they ignore is closer than they think.<br \/>\nAnd it get too close for comfort unless something changed. Sadly, four decades after Bob said this, people still haven\u2019t gotten the message.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/on.fb.me\/bomanijones\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The amazing thing about Bob Marley was how he always seemed to be right. Granted, he wasn\u2019t spitting complex theses that invited much argument. His thoughts were typically basic, inarguable truisms. It got no truer than \u201cThem Belly Full&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,23],"tags":[96],"class_list":["post-3203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-the-music-jones","tag-boblogs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bomanijones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}