Jamaica International Reggae Museum Limited

Experience Jamaican culture at the Jamaica International Reggae Museum Limited where visitors and local residents from all walks of life are invited to learn through books, magazines, videos, artifacts, memorabilia, songs, dance and live performances.

You'll learn about international artists like:

Upon arrival in the hills of St. Ann, the birth and resting place of the king of reggae, Bob Marley, you will travel the world of Jamaican musical history. Donations will help to acquire the renowned Roger Steffens' Reggae Archive featuring the world's largest single collection of reggae music (some unreleased) as well as memorabilia and artifacts. A proposed state-of-the-art audio and video collection will allow you to hear and see the creative spirit of Jamaica.

More than 50 years of newspaper clippings and Rolling Stone magazines are placed in the archive collection and can be accessible to reggae historians at university. If we receive enough donations, we will be able to display the historical accounts of the evolution of reggae music.

Acquiring the collection can only be successful with donations from you!

If you or someone you know wants to display your reggae memorabilia with us, please contact us! We would like to display many of these items on our website’s gallery page.

We invite and encourage local schools to preserve the beauty and legacy of our Jamaican culture through plays and reenactments of performances like Miss Lou’s and old traditional folktales.

The Jamaica International Reggae Museum Limited is committed to telling the story about local and international events that shaped the evolution of reggae music in Jamaica and eventually around the world today.

The international reggae community is invited to join us as we rejoice and revel in all our favorite music.

Also, through your donations, we hope to restore Canaan, the Great House to serve as a reminder of what life was like in the early 1900’s. Here visitors will see the resting place of a slave’s descendent who was born on Jamaica’s Emancipation Day. You will see a functioning outdoor kitchen from the era and an outhouse like you’ve never seen before. This impenetrable 'Earthship' structure will eventually house the museum's finest collection of artifacts.

To house the collection, we have begun to build an Earthship structure protected which will be protected by security systems. Plans are being drawn up by Jonah Reynolds of Earthship Biotecture. Earthships are one of the most sustainable, economical building designs in the world.

It is a  passive solar building structure made of natural and recycled materials, thermal mass construction for temperature stabilization, renewable energy, and integrated water systems that allow for little-to-no utility bills.

Jamaica International Reggae Museum Limited is seeking to acquire The Roger Steffens' Reggae Archive, a massive and important collection presently located in Los Angeles, CA. Making a home for this collection in Alva, Nine Mile District, St. Ann, Jamaica, is a massive project, but one whose time has come and is long overdue.

Donations via PayPal will go towards construction projects, helping children, the elderly and the handicapped. Learn more about donating today.

The Reggae Library has more than 50 cubic meters of clippings from magazines and newspapers, almost all contained in alphabetized folders.

We have more than 20,000 posters and fliers and upwards of 10,000 hours of tapes, including rare singles, interviews, and thousands of live shows. We have more than 1,000 Marley and Wailers-related tapes of live shows, interviews, out-takes, demos, unreleased songs and versions, rehearsals and tributes.

Our collection contains all 1,400 hours of the “Reggae Beat” radio program from Sundays in the 1980s. These gems contain hundreds of interviews with reggae artists, beginning with Bob Marley in Nov. 1979 and 184 hours of Rogers' syndicated show, “Reggae Beat International.”

There are more than 10,000 CDs and records. Of special interest is the Bob Marley and the Wailers collection, which contains 99% of everything Bob, Bunny and Peter released. Most of these have been signed by at least one of the artists. Extremely rare signatures in the Wailers archive include Coxson Dodd, Beverley Kelso, Cherry Green, Vision Walker, members of the Skatalites, Reggie Lewis, Glen Adams and the Barrett Brothers.

Our collection has more than 2,000 hours of video, including the entire master tapes of my “L.A. Reggae” TV series, featuring Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, Jimmy Cliff, Joseph Hill, and scores of other reggae notables being interviewed.

There is more than 1,100 reggae t-shirts, many extremely rare including the official shirt for the One Love Peace Concert. There are many other notable items of reggae clothing, including two promo pairs of red, gold and green Nike sneakers with “Rasta” and “Man” printed on the back sides. The other pair recently sold for $20,000!

We have more than 3,000 handmade buttons and badges from all over the world, the true folk art of the Rasta movement, including 400 exquisite ones made by Bobo Ricky, the pre-eminent Rasta badge maker.

With approximately 30,000 reggae-oriented photographs, slides and prints, Jamaica International Reggae Museum Limited is sure to have photos of all your favorite artists. This collection includes valuable Bob Marley pictures and 4,000 shots of people around the world wearing Bob Marley clothing.

Many of these photographs, and other miscellaneous items, have been autographed by the artist, many of whom have since passed away. This makes these items invaluable.

There are approximately 6,000 separate archive items that were framed for display during Steffens eight-month exhibit in 2001 at the Queen Mary. Some are in storage at Curatorial Assistance in Pasadena, CA and ready to be placed on display almost instantly.

• Bob Marley poster from Berkeley, CA in July 1978 signed by Bob, the entire Wailers Band, Bunny Wailer, Joe Higgs, Chris Blackwell, Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, Bob’s mother and sister Pearl, and a total of 37 of those closest to him (28 in front, 9 in back, plus Bob.)
  
  
• Cached envelope autographed by Emperor Haile Selassie postmarked at the United Nations on Oct., 4 1963, commemorating the day he delivered the “War” speech at the U.N. There is also a letter from his secretary confirming the authenticity of his signature, written on Imperial Palace stationery in Addis Ababa.
  
  
• 7-inch copy of “Selassie Is the Chapel,” one of the 26 copies from the initial pressing in 1968, signed by its composer Mortimo Planno with a note: “I wrote this song and gave Bob Marley to sing 1968 M Planno.” The item also contains the signature and a note from Dermot Hussey saying: “This is the copy of the record that I played on the day Bob Marley passed, May 11th 1981, on the JBC – Dermot Hussey.” The highest auction bid on this record, without autographs, was $3,800.
  
  
• An autographed copy of the gatefold first pressing of the soundtrack album, signed by director Perry Henzell, film stars Jimmy Cliff and Toots Hibbert, Desmond Dekker and Chris Blackwell. There is also an original Los Angeles movie poster from the NuArt Theater in Dec. 1972 and a large French poster, titled “Tout, Tout de Suite.”
  
  
• “Oh Carolina” by the Folkes Brothers is the first record released on Prince Buster, inscribed and autographed by John Folkes.
  
  
• Robert Marley Jr., a self-portrait autographed and dated on the 50th anniversary of Bob’s birth.

• Peter Tosh’s extremely rare 1978 Bush Doctor album cover with ganja-scented scratch-and-sniff sticker. This was an item banned in UK.
  
  
• Large advertising poster for Tosh’s “Hammer Dem Dung.
  
  
• Tosh’s “Don’t Look Back” 12-picture sleeve signed by Peter Tosh, Mick Jagger, Sly and Robbie.
  
  
• Large wall poster for Bob Marley’s biggest show in Milan on June 27, 1980 where he played before 110,000 people.
  
  
• Marley poster from the Apollo Theater in Harlem from Oct. 1979.
  
  
• Giant-sized twelve-foot square heavy vinyl advertising banner, printed on both sides, for Bob Marley’s anthology One Love.
  
  
• Large original silk screen of Bob Marley and Carly Barrett, signed by the artist.
  
  
• Several fine paintings, including Lee “Scratch” Perry with six arms (used as a Heartbeat album cover 2004); Cedella Booker at Nine Mile; “Mr Brown” with the crows on the coffin and many more of Bob from around the world.
  
  
• A trove of Marley memorabilia.
  
  
• Two huge, hand-made one of a kind silk-screen Marley tapestries, made for Carlos Santana and donated by the artist to the archives.
  
  
• Two extraordinary hand-painted beaded curtains of Marley from Saigon.
  
  
• A ten million diamond record award given to Charlie Comer, Bob and Peter’s publicist, which he left to Roger following his death.
  
  
• A set of seven hand-painted Ukranian nesting dolls of Bob Marley.
  
  
• Eleven oversized file drawers of Bob Marley clippings, sorted by year.