Ethiopia gears up for late Bob Marley's 60th birthday





ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - Ethiopia is preparing a massive party next month to mark the 60th birthday of late reggae superstar Bob Marley, the first time the annual event has been held outside the singer's native Jamaica.


Some 200,000 people are expected to attend the giant celebration featuring concerts from scores of African and international musicians that will start five days before Marley's February 6 birthday, organizers said Friday.


Marley's widow, Rita, chose Ethiopia as the site of this year's commemoration "Africa Unite" for symbolic reasons, Desta Meghoo-Peddie, president of the Bob Marley Foundation told reporters here.


Not only is former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, born Ras Tafari, the spiritual leader of the rastafarian movement that Marley embraced and popularized with his music but Addis Ababa is home to the African Union.


"It was always Bob Marley's desire to return to Ethiopia and to be a rastafarian," Meghoo-Peddie said.


But she adamantly denied widespread reports that Rita Marley intended to exhume her late husband's remains in Jamaica and rebury them on Ethiopian soil.


"There is no plan to return the remains of Bob Marley to Ethiopia on February 6," she said. "No body is being exhumed."


Marley, famed for hits such as "No Woman No Cry," died from brain cancer at the age of 36 in 1981 but his music remains hugely popular around the world, especially in the Caribbean and Africa.


The highlight of the month-long festivities will be a gala concert on February 6 that will feature the Marley family, Senegalese musicians Babaa Maal and Youssou N'Dour, singer Angelique Kidjo from Benin and American calypso king Harry Belafonte, organizers said.


The celebration will also feature other concerns, the launch of Rita Marley's biography entitled "My Life with Bob Marley," an exhibition of African art and three conferences: on African unity, women and youth, they said.


Proceeds from the sale of CDs and DVDs from the concerts will be given to charity with a portion set aside for Somalian victims of the December 26 tsunami.

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