Rohan Marley Says He Smoked A Spliff On The Lawns In Front Of The White House

Rohan Marley, the son of the legendary Bob Marley, told People that despite his family’s renowned name in music, he firmly asserts his individuality and rooted in his own identity. “There’s a saying, ‘Every tub has its own feet,’ you understand?” explains Marley to People Magazine.  Drawing inspiration from his father’s Rastafarian message, culture and beliefs, Marley dismisses the notion of being a “nepo baby,” refuting the popularized idea that children of famous parents enjoy an easier path to success.

“It don’t work like that,” he insists, countering the assumption that his father’s fame defines him. “You really have to take on to a teaching, take on to responsibility. It’s not like just because my dad is Bob, that’s why I am this way. No, no, no.”

The Coffee farmer had told WMV in an interview that a large part of who is has to do with the rough environments in Jamaican where he grew up.

“My childhood wasn’t so simple, on my birth certificate when I was born they didn’t give me my father’s name, they gave me my mother’s boyfriend name cause my mother was mad at my father. So they used to call me Rohan Anthony Bruff. Then my father had to come and claim me” he recalled.

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Rohan is one of six boys and he told WMV that he didn’t pick up that message or mission of “One Love” early in life, instead he found comfort in the company of neighborhood gangsters.

“I lived in a place where there was bad boys and school boys, they were both my friends”, he said.

At age 9 his insecurities heightened after his father’s untimely death in a Miami hospital in May 1981. He began to rebel against every sign of authority.

“After a time, in 1981 when my father had transitioned to the next region, I kinda transitioned too within my soul and my physical way of life and the way I just think. I just didn’t like school anymore, I just didn’t like the people in the school, I used to think they look down upon me,” Rohan said. 

“I never forget I used to wear this Jeans suit my father gave me, and these nice gentleman shoes When I am 9 years old I am that guy, I know about style and them ting deh”, he bragged.

Even with a famous father and stylish sensibilities he adopted form Jamaica, he was heading down the road traveled by notorious criminals and would have succeeded if it wasn’t for his expulsion from school and a generous grandmother.

“I was heading down the wrong road, them time I admired the gangsters. I listened to rude boy type of music, young and rude, they used to call me ‘Bob Bad Son’,” he explained.

Rohan can now appreciate and reap the benefits of both his environment growing up in Jamaica as well as his father’s messages which helped him to build his self esteem long after he died.

“We are a product of our own environment and our own development, I am only what I have been taught, I am only what I listen to all the time, I mostly learn from my brothers and sisters and uncle and granny and from the persons who are in love with my father and of course my father,” he told WMV.

Still on message, he told People, your inner self isn’t inherited from your father. He emphasizes that many children have fathers they don’t heed. In the case of him and his siblings, they chose to embrace their father’s teachings. “We chose to listen to our father. He’s not the end all be all, but he’s the beginning. Your father’s not perfect, especially the man that left this earth at 36 years old. But he tapped us into a way of life,” he says, referring to their adoption of Rastafarian culture.

For the Marleys, it’s about honoring the principles their father imparted. “Even though me and my brothers have different mothers, we have never had an argument, none of these things,” he says. “It’s about God consciousness. Because on this Earth you’re an individual, you dig? And your individuality comes from what you seek, not where you’re from.”

The 51 year-old adventurer just launched a cannabis and lifestyle brand Lion Order, and told People, “I…smoked on the lawn in front of the White House, was like my ice cream with the cherry on top. That was the one,” he said of the US President’s 1600 Pensilvania address.

Marley said his father did not like the idea of him smoke and one time he was reprimanded after being caught with a home made joint when he was young. “I started young. Once I was smoking and my dad saw me and says to me ‘Hey boy, where you get that from? Who give you that? Take that out your mouth!'” he recalls with a laugh, adding that that day, “My dad embarrassed me.”