Alpharita Constantia Anderson Jarret

Well-known Cuban reggae singer, famous for being the widow of legendary Bob Marley and member of the I Threes ensemble. Cuban singer Rita Marley is the widow of the legendary king of reggae, Bob Marley.

Her father was a carpenter named Leroy Anderson and her mother was named Cynthia "Beda" Jarrett. When Rita was five years old, her mother abandoned the family, taking her younger brother Donovan with her. She later emigrated to Jamaica and lived in the Trenchtown neighborhood in Kingston with her family and joined a group of female reggae artists in her youth.

The rest of her siblings, Leroy Anderson, Wesley, Diane, Jeannette, and current radio presenter Ranking Miss P, were raised by her aunt Auntie Viola Anderson Britton.

In the mid-sixties, she was singing in a female group called The Soulettes. Fortunately, they were doing very well, so they were able to record an album at the Studio One offices. It was there that she met Bob Marley.

In 1966 she married Bob Marley and after her husband's death she opened the Rita Marley Foundation for aid to Africa.

After her band became the I Threes, she began her association with Rastafari and both of them married on February 10, 1966. From then on, her group was associated with Marley's as backup singers for his band.

Rita converted to the Rastafari movement, to which Marley belonged, after seeing Haile Selassie during his visit to Kingston in April 1966.

When they married, Bob Marley adopted Rita's two children with other names and in turn, during their marriage, he had three children with her who would also carry his legendary surname.

In order of birth, Rita's children are: Sharon, born November 23, 1964; Cedella, August 23, 1967; David Ziggy Marley, October 17, 1968; Stephen, April 20, 1972, and Stephanie, August 17, 1974.

After Bob Marley's death, Rita began her solo career, recording some albums with some success in the United Kingdom. She was the executor of Bob Marley's legacy as his widow and administered the inheritance to her children during their minority. Rita also supported her son Ziggy Marley's debut in music.

In 1998, she founded the Rita Marley Foundation for aid in Africa as an extension of the Bob Marley Foundation, founded by her husband.

In 2004, Rita dictated an autobiography to writer Hettie Jones, "No woman, no cry", which describes unimaginable poverty: Marley was already recognized in Jamaica as part of the Wailers, but the couple lived in a hut; Bob only had a pair of underwear, which Rita washed every night.

"No woman, no cry" portrays a Bob who was far from exemplary, though less heartless than his buddies, who were capable of looting the box office of a benefit concert intended to build a Rasta school.

It also recounts her husband's various infidelities and the violent incident that after their separation she was raped by the singer, resulting in the birth of her last child. Nevertheless, Rita made a clear distinction between the Rastafarian message of the deceased, which she embraced, and his behavior as a human being.

In January 2005, Jamaican authorities were outraged when Rita Marley announced that she intended to exhume her husband Bob Marley's remains and bury them in Shashemene, a locality in Ethiopia where a community of Jamaican Rastas resides to whom Emperor Haile Selassie had granted lands.

For the Jamaican Government, the decision was a national insult and an economic setback: Bob is their most universally recognized citizen, and his tomb has become one of the island's main tourist attractions. Rita reminded them that in Jamaica, Bob was imprisoned for marijuana possession and survived an assassination attempt.

In February 2005, Rita took charge of collaborating with the development of concerts and other activities in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, around the sixtieth anniversary of Bob's birth.

Currently Rita lives in Ghana, where she maintains a studio for new talents in African music and remains involved with the charitable work of her foundation on various aid projects.

After her husband's death, she took charge of managing all the capital and released two albums under her new name. "Rita Marley" from 1980 and "Who feels It knows it" were very popular in the United Kingdom.

After this, she entered a hiatus in her life in order to better raise her children and stopped working in music until 1988 when she released two new albums "We must carry on" and "Harambe (Working together for Freedom)".

Some time later, in 1990, she made three releases: "Beauty of God's", "One draw", and "Good girls cult", distributed by Shanachie Records, the company with which she had released all her albums.

Once again, her music career was halted, this time for just over a decade until 2003 when she released a small album in tribute to her late husband.

In 2004, a biography was released called "No woman no cry: My life with Bob Marley" in which she recounted much of her marriage to the reggae star.

Her most recent works are "Sunshine after rain" and "Gifted fourteen carnation", now from her new residence in Konkonduru, Ghana.