London: Bob Marley’s last surviving bandmate Bunny Livingston follows a peculiar way of drug-taking – smoking marijuana out of a hollowed-out carrot.
Explaining the bizarre act Livingston, the last living member of Marley’s band the Wailers, said: “The herb of the field is best smoked through the root of the ground.”
He revealed it as part of a unique filmmaking project, to document the “flesh and blood” life of Jamaican singer Marley.
Directed by Kevin Macdonald, the film uses the testimony of his closest friends and family to piece together a history of the cult figure, known for his laidback lifestyle and music.
Macdonald, who also directed the Oscar-winning ‘One Day’ told the Sunday Times Culture magazine he managed to track down Marley’s old friends and former girlfriends with the help of his oldest son Ziggy.
“The more I thought about it, the more interested I became in trying to make a film about Bob Marley that was intimate and personal, that didn’t treat him as a myth but as flesh and blood,” the Telegraph quoted Macdonald as saying.
“The best way to do that seemed to be to talk to as many people who had known him as possible.
“He’s a slippery stick and difficult to get a handle on. What’s extraordinary is how much he still means to people in the developing world; he’s a voice from the ghetto talking about problems everyone can understand.
“Essentially, what he’s saying is, you can have a really sh*tty time, you can be the one that gets excluded – yet however bad things are, you can still turn your life and make good,” he added.
Livingston originally demanded 1 million dollar for his contribution, but later accepted a “much reduced” fee.
Ziggy Marley, who is now executive producer of the project, said: “I wanted us to tell the full story of Bob from the people who knew him best. I felt the film could be like a document that was passed down from one generation to the next.
“When my children asked what my grandfather was like, I could show them this,” he added.
ANI