Jamaican billionaire buys Marley memorabilia
Thursday, May 27, 2004
TORONTO, Canada: Canadian mutual fund
tycoon, Jamaican-born Michael Lee-Chin has agreed to purchase the world's
largest collection of Bob Marley memorabilia and donate the more than 200,000
items to a yet-to-be-established National Museum of Jamaican Music, the
Toronto Star reports. "The Government of
Jamaica is pleased with this singular act of the repatriation of the Marley
legacy and looks forward to sharing it with the world," said Jamaica's culture
minister, Maxine Henry-Wilson.
She said Marley created an identity for
Jamaicans that has helped "increase their perception of themselves and pride
in their heritage." Selling the collection is
California musicologist Roger Steffens.
Steffens told the Star he will serve as the
new museum's curator emeritus. He declined to say how much Lee-Chin paid for
his archives, except to say it was "a figure commensurate with 31 years of
work." The collection, which Steffens started
in 1973, fills six rooms in his L.A. home and includes 12,000 records and CDs,
10,000 posters and flyers and 12,000 hours of tapes.
Marley, who died of cancer in 1981, formed the Wailers with friends Bunny
Livingston and Peter Tosh in the mid-'60s, and the band popularized reggae
around the world with inspiring songs about love, spirituality, unity and
liberation. The group split up in the early '70s to pursue solo careers and
Marley became an international star. Steffens
said it took him three months to computerize his Marley inventory, to
facilitate negotiations with Lee-Chin's foundation.
"I imagine by the end of the summer things will start leaving. My wife says it
will probably be the closest I'll come as a man to post-partum depression," he
said. Lee-Chin is the chairman of AIC Ltd.,
one of Canada's largest mutual fund companies, and was recently ranked the
world's 216th wealthiest person with a net worth of $2.4 billion (U.S.) by
Forbes magazine.
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