# Cedella Booker
**Cedella Marley Booker** (born Sidilla Editha Malcolm; July 23, 1926 – April 8, 2008) was a Jamaican singer and author best known as the mother of reggae musician [Bob Marley](https://www.edgepedia.org/bob-marley). She recorded two albums, wrote two biographies of her son, and founded an annual festival in his memory in Miami, Florida.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born | July 23, 1926, Rhoden Hall, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/cedella-marley-booker-mn0000662032) |
| Died | April 8, 2008, Miami, Florida, aged 81, in her sleep, apparently of natural causes[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/cedella-marley-booker-mn0000662032) • [2](https://www.legacy.com/legacy/notable-deaths/cedella-booker) |
| Birth name | Sidilla Editha Malcolm[3](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6148596/bio/) |
| Albums | *Awake Zion* (1991) and *Smilin' Island of Song* (1992)[4](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html) |
| Books | *Bob Marley: An Intimate Portrait by His Mother* (1996) and *Bob Marley, My Son* (2003), both with Anthony C. Winkler[5](https://obnb.uk/p10356913-bob-marley-my-son) |
| Festival | Founded the annual Bob Marley Festival in Miami, Florida[6](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/booker-cedella-marley-1926-2008) |
| Honor | Order of Distinction (Commander Class), awarded posthumously by the Jamaican government[7](https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080429/lead/lead4.html) |
## Early life and marriage
Sidilla Editha Malcolm, who would become known as Booker, entered the world at Rhoden Hall in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, born to Albertha Whilby and Omeriah Malcolm, a farmer who practiced as a "bush doctor" and was counted among Nine Mile's most respected residents.[8](https://jamaicansmusic.com/artists/cedella-booker/) Her paternal grandfather was Robert "Uncle Day" Malcolm, descended from Coromantee (Akan) people shipped to Jamaica from the [Gold Coast](https://www.edgepedia.org/gold-coast), today Ghana, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries[8](https://jamaicansmusic.com/artists/cedella-booker/).
At 18 she married Norval Sinclair Marley, a white Jamaican of English descent[8](https://jamaicansmusic.com/artists/cedella-booker/). Sources differ on his age: the JamaicansMusic biography gives 59, while obituaries in the Associated Press and The Independent describe him as 32 years her senior[2](https://www.legacy.com/legacy/notable-deaths/cedella-booker) • [4](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html). Their son, Robert Nesta Marley, was born in Nine Mile in 1945[9](https://www.bobmarley.com/history/). Norval Marley provided little financial support and rarely visited; he died in 1955, when Bob was 10 years old[4](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html).
## Trenchtown, Delaware, and family
After Norval Marley's death, Booker and her son moved to [Trenchtown](https://www.edgepedia.org/trenchtown), a slum neighborhood in Kingston, which she could afford as a young woman moving from the country to the city[8](https://jamaicansmusic.com/artists/cedella-booker/). The hardships of those years informed her son's music, most notably the lyrics and sentiment of "No Woman No Cry"[4](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html). While living in Kingston she had a daughter, Claudette Pearl, with Thaddeus Livingston, the father of [Bunny Wailer](https://www.edgepedia.org/bunny-wailer), who joined Bob Marley and [Peter Tosh](https://www.edgepedia.org/peter-tosh) in the original Wailers[8](https://jamaicansmusic.com/artists/cedella-booker/).
In 1963 she married Edward Booker, a civil servant, and moved to the United States, settling in [Wilmington, Delaware](https://www.edgepedia.org/wilmington-delaware)[4](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html). Bob Marley joined her there in 1966, working as a DuPont lab assistant and on a Chrysler plant assembly line under the alias Donald Marley[9](https://www.bobmarley.com/history/). Edward Booker died in 1976, after which she moved to Miami[4](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html). Her children were Robert Nesta Marley, Pearl Livingston, and, with Edward Booker, Anthony and Richard Booker[3](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6148596/bio/). Anthony was shot dead by a Miami policeman at age 19[4](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html).
She was at her son's side when he died at Cedars of Lebanon hospital in Miami in May 1981, at age 36; his last words to her were "Maddah, don't cry"[4](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html).
## Music
AllMusic describes Booker as a "big-voiced one-of-a-kind gospel-reggae singer" and notes that hearing her shows where Bob got his power[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/cedella-marley-booker-mn0000662032). A 1985 profile in *Musician* recalled that in 1977, while working on the Wailers' *[Exodus](https://www.edgepedia.org/exodus-bob-marley-and-the-wailers-album)* album, Bob Marley began encouraging his mother, "a powerful church singer in her youth," to cut some gospel-reggae demos[10](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Musician/1980/1985/Musician-1985-11.pdf).
Her album *Awake Zion*, released in 1991 and produced by the Wailers bassist Aston "Family Man" Barrett, was recorded partly at Tuff Gong Recording Studio in Kingston and Woodland Studios in Nashville[4](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html) • [11](https://www.allmusic.com/album/awake-zion-mw0000263406). AllMusic's review describes it as drawing heavily on African-American gospel and R&B, especially the Memphis soul of [Stax Records](https://www.edgepedia.org/stax-records), with lyrics inspired by the Rastafarian faith rather than Christianity[11](https://www.allmusic.com/album/awake-zion-mw0000263406). *Smilin' Island of Song* (1992), made with [Taj Mahal](https://www.edgepedia.org/taj-mahal), was a collection of Caribbean folk songs for children[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/cedella-marley-booker-mn0000662032) • [4](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html). She also appeared on numerous children's and world-music compilations through the 1990s and 2000s, including *World Playground* (1999) and *Disney Adventures in Reggae* (2010)[1](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/cedella-marley-booker-mn0000662032).
## Books and memorial work
After her son's death, Booker dedicated herself to preserving his memory[6](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/booker-cedella-marley-1926-2008). She coauthored *Bob Marley: An Intimate Portrait by His Mother* with the Jamaican writer Anthony C. Winkler, first published in London by Viking in 1996 and reissued as *Bob Marley, My Son* by Taylor Trade in 2003[5](https://obnb.uk/p10356913-bob-marley-my-son) • [12](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Bob-Marley-My-Son/Cedella-Marley-Booker/9781630760779). Encyclopedia.com also credits her with coauthoring *56 Thoughts from 56 Hope Road: The Sayings and Psalms of Bob Marley* (2002) and *The Boy from Nine Miles: The Early Life of Bob Marley* (2002), both with Gerald Hausman[6](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/booker-cedella-marley-1926-2008).
She founded the annual Bob Marley Festival in Miami, Florida[6](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/booker-cedella-marley-1926-2008); one account dates the event, today called the 9 Mile Music Festival, to 1993, while Encyclopedia.com gives her founding year as 1994[13](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/booker-cedella-marley-1926). She occasionally performed with Bob's sons Ky-Mani, Ziggy, Stephen, Damian, and Julian, and appeared at a concert celebrating Marley's 60th birthday in [Addis Ababa](https://www.edgepedia.org/addis-ababa), Ethiopia, in 2005[4](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html).
## Death and legacy
Booker died in her sleep on the night of April 8, 2008, at her home in Miami, apparently of natural causes, aged 81[2](https://www.legacy.com/legacy/notable-deaths/cedella-booker). At her funeral at the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in St Andrew, Jamaica, attended by roughly 300 people, the government awarded her the Order of Distinction (Commander Class), Jamaica's fifth-highest civic honor[7](https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080429/lead/lead4.html). She was buried in Nine Mile, at the site where her son had been interred 27 years earlier[7](https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080429/lead/lead4.html). Jamaica's information minister, Olivia Grange, called her "the matriarch of a movement so powerful that the mystical qualities of the Marley musical legacy remain strong and potent"[2](https://www.legacy.com/legacy/notable-deaths/cedella-booker).
## References
1. [Cedella Marley Booker — Biography, Discography, Albums & Expert Reviews, AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/cedella-marley-booker-mn0000662032)
2. [Cedella Booker Obituary (AP via Legacy.com)](https://www.legacy.com/legacy/notable-deaths/cedella-booker)
3. [Cedella Booker — Biography, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6148596/bio/)
4. [Cedella Marley Booker: Keeper of the Marley flame, The Independent (2008)](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html)
5. [Bob Marley, my son, Open British National Bibliography](https://obnb.uk/p10356913-bob-marley-my-son)
6. [Booker, Cedella Marley 1926–2008, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/booker-cedella-marley-1926-2008)
7. [Teary farewell for Bob's mom, Jamaica Gleaner (2008)](https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080429/lead/lead4.html)
8. [Cedella Booker — Jamaican Reggae Artist, JamaicansMusic](https://jamaicansmusic.com/artists/cedella-booker/)
9. [History — Bob Marley, bobmarley.com](https://www.bobmarley.com/history/)
10. [Melody Makers, Musician magazine (1985)](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Musician/1980/1985/Musician-1985-11.pdf)
11. [Awake Zion — Cedella Marley Booker, AllMusic review](https://www.allmusic.com/album/awake-zion-mw0000263406)
12. [Bob Marley, My Son, Simon & Schuster publisher page](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Bob-Marley-My-Son/Cedella-Marley-Booker/9781630760779)
13. [Booker, Cedella Marley 1926-, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/booker-cedella-marley-1926)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Music scenes › Latin American and Caribbean scenes › Caribbean scenes: dancehall, reggae, soca, kompa, zouk › Artists, groups, and people: Caribbean scenes: dancehall, reggae, soca, kompa, zouk › Roots reggae and lovers rock era*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 12, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license