“With Daddy passing, she had to become very vocal. “In that culture, women are to be seen and not heard,” says Cedella of Rastas. She also had to grapple with a double whammy: trying to be a woman in power in both the male-dominated music business and the male-dominated Rastafarian world. She’s been a lightning rod for criticism, and, with her family, has faced legal challenges to the estate and money since Bob’s death. The celebrations are a reminder of the hurdles and challenges Marley faced. “When we started talking about her 75 th birthday, we started looking at Tuff Gong, at it being 40 years since the passing of Bob Marley and the reason that the museum and Tuff Gong Studios exists is because of the work she’s put in.”

“One of the things that we’ve all kind of taken for granted is when someone is really good at doing something, you don’t realize how much they’re doing,” says Myshjua Allen Murray, a longtime family friend who serves as executive label manager for the music division, Tuff Gong International. The birthday has also made those around her take stock of her contributions. On Sunday, Marley turns 75, a milestone that’s become even more significant given her recent health issues: In 2016, she suffered a stroke - her seventh.

“I never see myself as Bob Marley’s widow,” Rita said in 2000. These days, the family business - now run by Rita and Bob’s second-oldest child, Cedella - routinely earns at least $20 million a year and is valued at five times that amount. A few years after Bob died, an audit of his estate came up with a mere $250,000. Under her guidance, the Marley empire now includes a Bob Marley Museum and a recording studio (both in Kingston), a vinyl and CD pressing plant, record stores and a book division, and an onslaught of family-approved merch: cannabis and body-care products, headphones and other audio gear, coffee, and even a just-launched line of “functional mushrooms” (where they can be legally sold). But more importantly, and sometimes controversially, she took on oversight of his estate and business.

Rita marley dead