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60 free Bob Marley trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Robert Nesta Marley was born in a Jamaican hill village to a teenage mother and a white father he barely knew, moved to a Kingston slum at 12, and by 36 was the first global superstar to come out of the developing world. This quiz covers the whole arc: the Wailing Wailers and their first Jamaican number one, the spell working on a Delaware assembly line, Chris Blackwell and Island Records, the albums from Catch a Fire to Uprising, the songs Eric Clapton and Jimmy Cliff covered, and the compilation that has sat on the Billboard chart for more than 900 weeks. It also covers the man: his conversion to Rastafari and his last-minute baptism, the assassination attempt before Smile Jamaica, the moment he joined the hands of Manley and Seaga on stage, the melanoma under his toenail, his football obsession, his eleven acknowledged children and the mausoleum at Nine Mile. Questions run from easy (which country he came from) to expert (the name he was baptised under). Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Marley, his albums, his songs and the people around him, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Try our reggae, Jamaica and 1970s music quizzes next.
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Q 01Bob Marley was born on 6 February of which year?
1945
He was born on his grandfather's farm in the hill village of Nine Mile, where he is now buried in a mausoleum.
Q 02What was Marley's middle name?
Nesta
His eldest son David is better known as Ziggy, and shares the middle name.
Q 03Marley's father Norval was a white Jamaican of what ancestry?
Welsh
He called himself 'Captain' though he had only been a private, was about 60 when Bob was born, and died when the boy was ten.
Q 04At age 12 Marley moved with his mother to which Kingston neighbourhood?
Trenchtown
The area is named after Trench Pen, land once used for livestock by an 18th-century Irish immigrant.
Q 05Marley formed his first vocal group with Peter Tosh and which childhood friend?
Bunny Wailer
Born Neville Livingston, he and Bob shared a house in Kingston, and their parents even had a daughter together.
Q 06Before settling on the Wailers, the group was NOT known by which of these names?
The Rude Boys
Producer Coxsone Dodd discovered them while they were still the Wailing Wailers.
Q 07The Wailers' first Jamaican number one, in February 1964, was which song?
Simmer Down
The ska single for the Coxsone label sold an estimated 70,000 copies.
Q 08The Wailers' 1965 debut album included 'One Love', a reworking of which Curtis Mayfield song?
People Get Ready
The later re-recording credits Mayfield and became one of Marley's four UK hit singles from his 1977 London album.
Q 09After marrying Rita in 1966, Marley briefly moved to which US state, working at DuPont?
Delaware
His mother lived in Wilmington; he also drove a forklift there before heading home to Jamaica.
Q 10Marley was raised in which religion before converting to Rastafari?
Catholicism
He converted in 1966 while away from his mother's influence and began growing dreadlocks after returning to Jamaica.
Q 11As a Rastafarian, Marley regarded which ruler as an incarnation of God, or Jah?
Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia
Rastafari takes its name from Ras Tafari Makonnen, the emperor's title and name before his coronation in 1930.
Q 12Which record label boss signed the Wailers in 1972 and moulded their sound for a rock audience?
Chris Blackwell
The Island Records founder had just lost Jimmy Cliff and saw in Marley the 'rebel' image he needed.
Q 13The Wailers' first Island album, released in April 1973, was called what?
Catch a Fire
The original sleeve was a Zippo lighter with a flip-top, and it was the first reggae record made in a state-of-the-art studio.
Q 21Marley was shot at home on 3 December 1976, two days before which free concert?
Smile Jamaica
Marley played the show anyway, backed by the band Zap Pow while the Wailers were still in hiding, before a crowd of 80,000.
Q 22After the shooting Marley spent two years in self-imposed exile in which country?
England
He first spent a month recovering and writing at the site of Blackwell's Compass Point Studios in Nassau, then settled in London.
Q 23Which 1977 album, recorded in London, did Time magazine name the best album of the 20th century?
Exodus
It spent 56 consecutive weeks on the UK album chart and yielded four UK hit singles.
Q 14Eric Clapton's first US number one, in the mid-1970s, was a cover of which Wailers song from Burnin'?
I Shot the Sheriff
Clapton's guitarist George Terry gave him the album; the hit was Clapton's first since 'Layla' two years earlier.
Q 15Marley's first hit outside Jamaica, in 1975, was a live version of which song?
No Woman, No Cry
It was recorded at London's Lyceum Theatre on 17 July 1975 and later placed at No. 37 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs.
Q 16Which friend was credited with writing 'No Woman, No Cry' so royalties could fund his soup kitchen?
Vincent Ford
Marley is widely believed to have written the song, or at least its melody, himself.
Q 17The Wailers' backing vocal trio, which included Rita Marley, was called what?
The I Threes
Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffiths completed the group, which stayed with Marley until his death.
Q 18The original Wailers trio disbanded in which year, each member going solo?
1974
Bob kept the name as 'Bob Marley & The Wailers'; Tosh released Legalize It as a solo debut in 1976.
Q 19The Island Records boss gave Marley his Kingston house at what address, later the Bob Marley Museum?
56 Hope Road
The property, then called Island House, housed Tuff Gong Studios and was turned into a museum by Rita Marley in 1986.
Q 20Which 1976 album was Marley's first to reach the top 10 of the Billboard 200?
Rastaman Vibration
It peaked at number eight and produced 'Roots, Rock, Reggae', the only Marley single ever to enter the Billboard Hot 100.
Q 24A future supermodel appeared as a child in the 1978 video for 'Is This Love'. Who?
Naomi Campbell
The video was shot at the Keskidee centre, a Black-led arts venue in London; the single reached number 9 in the UK.
Q 25At the 1978 One Love Peace Concert, Marley joined the hands of Michael Manley and which opposition leader?
Edward Seaga
The moment came during 'Jamming' at Kingston's National Stadium, in the middle of a near civil war between the PNP and JLP.
Q 26What was Marley's 1979 album with African flags on its sleeve originally to be titled?
Black Survival
Its sleeve shows the flags of African nations, and the record was partially censored in apartheid South Africa.
Q 27In April 1980 Marley was invited to perform at the independence celebrations of which African country?
Zimbabwe
He had recorded a song named for the country on Survival, and the flag on that album's sleeve was still the two-flag design of Zimbabwe Rhodesia.
Q 28Marley's final studio album released in his lifetime, in June 1980, was called what?
Uprising
It closes with 'Redemption Song', and 'Could You Be Loved' from it reached number five in the UK.
Q 29Unusually for a Marley track, 'Redemption Song' is recorded how?
Solo, on acoustic guitar
Rita Marley said he was already secretly in a lot of pain and dealing with his own mortality when he made it.
Q 30Lines in 'Redemption Song' derive from a speech by which Pan-Africanist orator?
Marcus Garvey
The speech was called 'The Work That Has Been Done'; Marley had quoted it publicly at the Amandla Festival in 1979.