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Shake it with the roots, rock and reggae tour

In 1987 I won a school prize -- a book token, naturally, meant to encourage us to become serious readers. Like so many 14-year-old boys, however, my main interests were sport and music. Fyodor Dostoyevsky would have to wait. After a search through my nearest bookshop, I scribbled down the details of two books: a history of Olympic athletes and a Bob Marley biography.

When I read his story, Marley had been dead for six years after succumbing to cancer aged 36, but his legend had grown. Marley put Jamaica on the map. His songs were marked by references to his homeland, especially Kingston. Through listening to his music, I learnt about the Caribbean, which as a black Briton of Nigerian descent, seemed like the exotic end of the black diaspora.

But by the time I left university I had seen so many giant posters on bedroom walls of the singer smoking a traffic-cone sized spliff, he no longer seemed like a musical rebel. Everyone had claimed him, he wasn't cool any more. Besides, I often found his socially aware lyrics and spiritual philosophy rather dull. My tastes widened, and eventually I starting writing about music for a living.

I put my Marley CDs away and rarely played them.

So the prospect of going on a Bob Marley-themed holiday inspired nostalgia and amusement. I had visions of a marijuana-flavored tour through downtown Kingston with a Rasta guide. This would be gonzo travel reporting.

In fact, the Bob Marley One Love holiday is quite different. Created by Chris Blackwell, the man who signed Marley to Island Records and launched his international career, it is a luxury package that includes accommodation at Strawberry Hill, a beautiful resort overlooking Jamaica's capital.

The setting is a far cry from Trench Town, the poor suburb where Marley lived in the 1960s. But Strawberry Hill does have a musical pedigree because Marley fled there in 1976 after gunmen tried to assassinate him during an election campaign. The Rolling Stones partied here during the 1970s and today it is a jet-set destination. After my partner, Natasha, saw the Web site, she decided my solo cultural homage had to be upgraded to a family holiday, for us and Noah, our one-year-old son.

It was low season and the hotel was almost empty. The only other guests for the first couple of days seemed to be Grace Jones and her entourage, who were filming a travel documentary about the island's most glamorous hotel.

Seeing where Marley came from at first hand, the politics and poverty that shaped his music, left me with renewed respect for what he had achieved. But did it make me want to dust down my old CDs? Not yet. After five days of intensive Bob Marley, it was time for a reggae detox.

The Bob Marley One Love holiday: www.islandoutpost.com, from US$200 a night.
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