We tried to get from Chuku how it is that he came to be the accountant for the legendary Bob Marley. (See article in our edition for Wednesday, February 3, titled “Chuku Young visits”.)
C: …It was through a friend of mine named Norman Wesley, who went to school with me in Jamaica.
A: Around what time did you meet Bob Marley? Before he got really “big”?
C: ..I met Bob Marley in the early seventies. Bob Marley got big in 1972, when the album “Natty Dread”, when the Jazz magazine called “Down Beat” used to select the “Album of the Year”, and they picked Bob Marley; Natty Dread was Number 10. And then he went to England and put on a show, right; and that show “got” him. I can’t remember the name of the hall; it was a famous hall. It was Bob Marley and the Rolling Stones.
A: Who introduced you to Bob Marley? How did you get to meet him?
C: Oh, it was through Normy Wesley. Normy Wesley became a Rasta. And they became a special type of Rasta called “Twelve Tribes of Israel”……I used to go to his Twelve Tribe meetings; and Bob Marley was a Twelve Tribe. And then, when Bob Marley started to get big, I remember they were asking Normy to help them with some accounts because Normy was in the Twelve Tribe; and so Normy said, “No man, I wahn bring you a man weh know it more than me.” And so he introduced me to Bob.
But I never really got any direct appointment from Bob. Bob used to have a manager named Asha Davis, who was in Twelve Tribe too; and Asha knew Normy very well, and knew Normy to be an accountant. But Normy’s knowledge was limited, because when Normy turned Rasta, he gave it (accounts) up. But I was in Coopers & Lybrand and I was practicing, so I knew a little bit more than him. So then, I started to prepare the accounts for Bob Marley, for the local companies them, because Bob Marley had big companies all over the world.