Fly Rasta is the fifth solo studio album by Jamaican reggae artist Ziggy Marley. It was released on 15 April 2014, via Tuff Gong Worldwide. Produced by Ziggy Marley himself with Dave Cooley's additional production, it features guest appearances from Cedella Marley, Ian "Beezy" Coleman and U-Roy.
The album debuted at number 129 on the Billboard 200, number 22 on the Independent Albums and atop the Reggae Albums charts in the United States. It won a Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards held on February 8, 2015.
It was supported with singles "Fly Rasta" and "Lighthouse". AOL released a music video for "I Don't Wanna Live on Mars" exclusively on their web-page. The video features his real-life wife and kids in a dream sequence where their family traverses an unhealthy planet Earth. The song and video's imagery convey a unified message from Marley that we should treat the earth well so we do not all have to leave to live on Mars.
Fly Rasta was met with generally favourable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 63 based on six reviews.[1]AllMusic's David Jeffries praised the album, stating: "right-sized, organized in a sensible manner, and an alluring balance of cool and calm, Fly Rasta lives up to its title as it sits on Ziggy's top shelf".[2] Erin MacLeod of Exclaim! found "throughout the record, Marley demonstrates that reggae can grow and adapt without losing sight of its roots".[3]
In his negative review for The Guardian, Jon Dennis wrote: "the only risk Marley takes is on "You're My Yoko", where he attempts to woo a lucky lady by likening her to the avant-garde artist, while casting himself as John Lennon. Julian Lennon would have been nearer the mark".[5]
Track listing
All tracks are written by David Marley, except track 3 written with Sam Martin, and track 10 written with Jacob Luttrell and Geoffrey Early.
