Thick: Having a legendary musician for a father, did that make you want to get into music or make you wary of it?
Ky-Mani Marley: First, I feel as though this is my destiny. I never chose this. For me growing up, music was the furtherest thing on my mind. I remember my mom used to send me there to guitar lessons on Saturdays. And I thought that was just like the worst punishment to have to go to a guitar lesson on a Saturday. I should be at a park. After a while I stopped going. To me it was all about the athletic side of me, my mom is an athlete. So, for me it was all about the sports. For me, my musical career started by me playing around at a friend's house. I had a friend who had a soundsystem, and him a cut a dubplate. So, he's cutting a dubplate one day and he asked me to sing a song for him. It was kinda outta humour and I was like, alright. He was like, how many people can say they have a Marley dubplate? So, I said, okay. And at that time I was never into music, I'd DJed other people's songs, so we wrote some quick stuff...he never played the dub anyway. But what happened was I started going to his house every weekend, me and couple of my buddies and we started playing around. This producer came in one day and was like, I like your tone, you should really give it a shot and see what can happen. I started going to his house on the weekend because he had a lil' studio set up in his house. One thing lead to the next, before you know it was going there recording song on the weekend and before you know it, I was being offered a contact with Shang Records, the first record label that approached me. And when that came about, that was kinda like, wow! And still at the same time, the reality still didn't hit yet. 'Cuz my whole thing was like, alright, let me jump on this and see what happens. I'm going for a ride, if it happens it happens, if it don't, my friends gon' laugh at me. So, that was my approach to it. It was all fun and games to me. And I did the first album and there was a song on it called Dear Dad. I did a couple of shows and further down I remember this guy came to me...even at this time it was like, okay, I wrote some songs, I'm out here singing it, I got chicks screaming my name, I'm lovin' it. But I remember this one situation this guy came up to me and said to me, that song Dear Dad really did a lot for me a few months ago. And I'm like okay, I'm waiting for him to explain, and he stood in front of me as a grown man and broke down crying. He said a few months ago he lost his dad, the only thing he had in his life, so he felt as though he was alone in the world now. And he said he sat in his room with a pistol cotemplating suicide and he said for some reason something told him to press play on the CD player and the song that came on was Dear Dad. He said in that moment that song saved his life. Then I realized...just the emotion that he expressed in front of me as a man backstage at the concert with hundreds of people walking around me, and him not really caring who was seeing him break down like this, and then for him to tell me that, that song saved his life that gave my career meaning, All of a sudden what was fun and games is now a reality check. That's the moment that moved me in my career to let me know that this is a work here that has to be accomplished. And yes, I am following in my father's footsteps but at the same time I'm doing it in my own light. I'm not trying to replicate the music that my father did. I'm trying to carry on that message, whether it be rebelious "fight the system", or whether it be love, or whether it just be earth, I have to do it in my tone.