Later Years

Cancer Diagnosis
In July 1977, Marley was found to have malignant melanoma in a football wound on his right hallux (big toe). Marley refused amputation, citing worries that the operation would affect his dancing, as well as the Rastafari belief that the body must be "whole"

“ Rasta no abide amputation. I don't allow a man to be dismantled. ”
—From the biography Catch a Fire


Marley may have seen medical doctors as samfai. True to this belief Marley went against all surgical possibilities and sought out other means that would not break his religious beliefs. He also refused to register a will, based on the Rastafari belief that writing one acknowledged death as inevitable and disregarded the everlasting character of life.


Collapse and treatment
The cancer then spread to Marley's brain, lungs, liver, and stomach. After playing two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of his fall 1980 Uprising Tour, he collapsed while jogging in NYC's Central Park. The remainder of the tour was subsequently cancelled.

Bob Marley played his final concert at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 23, 1980. The live version of "Redemption Song" on Songs of Freedom was recorded at this show. Marley afterwards sought medical help from Munich specialist Josef Issels, but his cancer had already progressed to the terminal stage.

Death and posthumous reputation
While flying home from Germany to Jamaica for his final days, Marley became ill, and landed in Miami for immediate medical attention. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami, Florida on the morning of May 11, 1981 at the age of 36. His final words to his son Ziggy were "Money can't buy life".Marley received a state funeral in Jamaica, which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari. He was buried in a crypt near his birthplace with his Gibson Les Paul, a soccer ball, a marijuana bud, a ring that he wore everyday that was given to him by the Prince Asfa Wossen of Ethiopia (eldest son of H.I.M), and a Bible. A month before his death, he was awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit.

Bob Marley's music has continuously grown in popularity in the years since his death, providing a stream of revenue for his estate and affording him a mythical status in 20th century music history. He remains enormously popular and well-known all over the world, particularly so in Africa. Marley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Time magazine chose Bob Marley & The Wailers' Exodus as the greatest album of the 20th century.

In 2001, the same year that Marley won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award; a feature-length documentary about his life by Jeremy Marre Rebel Music was nominated for the Best Long Form Music Video documentary at the Grammies. It won various other awards. With contributions from Rita, the Wailers, and Marley's lovers and children, it also tells much of the story in his own words.

In Summer 2006, the City of New York renamed a portion of Church Avenue from Ramsen Avenue to East 98th Street in the East Flatbush Section of Brooklyn Bob Marley Blvd.