We all may come from different walks of life, but one thing that I truly believe in is that talent, perseverance, hard work and believing in yourself can take you a long way. This is why I love hearing about the success stories of people and learning from them. Today, I will present to you the ‘rags-to-riches’ stories of three of the biggest names in pop culture which I am sure you’re all too well familiar with. I hope they are as inspiring to you as they are to me.
Bob Marley
How can you not love music that is all about unity, love, equity and positivity? And how can you not respect the man who has moved the world and literally stopped wars with his music? Bob Marley is one of our biggest icons in modern times and the contributions that he made to our society far outreach his short time on this planet. This man single-handedly brought reggae to the whole world and introduced us to the Rastafari philosophy and lifestyle. His story becomes even more unbelievable when you think about where he came from.
Robert Nesta Marley was born in 1945, in a small village in the Saint Ann Jamaican parish, called Nine Mile, where he also spent the first 12 years of his life. The rural life might have not offered him commodities like electricity but had a profound influence over his philosophy, identity and music. At the age of twelve, his mother moved with him to Trench Town, a neighbourhood in Kingston which is as dangerous, poor and violent as it is culturally-rich and talent-loaded. Though Bob went to bed hungry many times during his teenage years, he valued extremely his life and experience in Trench Town which provided him with endless inspiration for his future career. Even when he got rich and famous, he didn’t forget his humble roots and continued visiting the neighbourhood.
Michael Jackson
I doubt there is a person in the world that hasn’t heard that name. Yet, I’m sure that not all of you know the story of how Michael Jackson became the most popular person on the planet and created a cult-like following that can only be compared to the Beatlemania.
Michael Joseph Jackson was born in 1958 in Gary, Indiana, and was the seventh out of the nine children of Katherine and Joe Jackson. The whole eleven-member family lived in a small two-bedroom house and had to take turns for the one bathroom. For the most part, Katherine was a stay-at-home-mom, while his father worked at the steel mill. When Joe realised that his children were musically-gifted, he saw in their talent an escape from the poverty and started rehearsing his five oldest boys every night. Soon after, the group was travelling in the nearby states, winning competition after competition and opening for artists such as Gladys Knight, James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the O’Jays until they finally got noticed by Motown. The rest is history…
Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones might not be a name as popular as Bob Marley’s or Michael Jackson’s, but trust me when I say that this is one of the most important figures in music of our times. His has worked as a composer, arranger, conductor and film producer, but he’s most famous for his work as an album producer with some of the biggest names in music: Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington and, of course, Michael Jackson. He’s also composed the scores of some very famous movies and TV shows: The Color Purple, The Wiz, Roots and produced one of the most successful and funny TV series of the 90’s – The Fresh Prince of Bel Air – therefore, giving Will Smith his first major role. And this is only a small part of what Quincy has achieved as you can see on his Wikipedia page. Incredible, taking into account where he came from…
Quincy was born in 1933 in Chicago. When he was little his mother suffered a mental breakdown, after which she was committed to a mental hospital. His father took Quincy and his brother to their grandmother in rural Kentucky where they lived for a year. The place was extremely poor – no water, no electricity, no heat… According to Quincy’s words, there were times when they’d eat rats for lack of anything tastier to put their hands on. Not that life was much easier when they got back to Chicago – the black ghetto wasn’t the safest place to grow up. His only escape was music which became his life. He tried all possible instruments in school until he settled on the trumpet. He soon joined a band and the success wasn’t slow to follow.