Liberals use Marley as a password, and I've lost count of the number of times people have said to me: "I don't know much about reggae music but I like Bob Marley." Some Rastafarians see him as a modern-day prophet; there is a band in New Zealand who have dedicated themselves to doing Marley cover versions; there is a tribe in South America that worships him. My mum loves him, and so do I. Not only do I think he was one of the greatest musicians to appear on planet earth, I think he was a really nice bloke. When I was just a kid, a struggling unknown poet ranting on the streets of Birmingham, he was the only singer who ever replied to any of my letters. I actually got advice from brother Bob: he told me to "keep it up", to "stay militant", and he said that one day people would read my poems. It's impossible to say exactly how much that meant to teenaged me. Bob Marley was my hero, and then he became my penpal. Very heaven. I grew up to the sound of Marley. I was listening to him when the band were simply known as the Wailers, before they were "repackaged" with Marley as the frontman. Trust me - back then I was their biggest fan. Throughout the history of the Wailers, and Bob Marley and the Wailers, they never released a dud album; every one was a classic. But since Bob Marley's death in 1981, there has been a string of posthumous albums, and every one them, with the possible exception of Confrontation, has been floored.

Bob Marley can't be blamed for this

Bob Marley can't be blamed for this, and neither can the Wailers: most of the surviving members of the band are involved in court actions claiming that they have been ripped off in one way or another. And I feel like going to court, because I feel like I'm being ripped off, too. I've got all the real Wailers and Marley and the Wailers albums, but I also have LPs such as King of Reggae, Lively Up Yourself, Songs of Freedom, Dreams of Freedom, Chant Down Babylon, Soul Almighty, Soul Captives, Legend, and many more. They sell them at car boot sales, petrol stations, post offices and newsagents. I even have two albums called Natural Mystic and they only have one track in common: a track called Natural Mystic. What all these albums do have in common is they are all so-called Best Of albums, or they claim to contain "rare" tracks that are "newly discovered" or "digitally remastered remixes". The truth is that Marley put out the best of his tunes when he was alive, and what we now have is various record companies trying to make as much money as they can from the icon.