HOT GALLERY: These Musicians Found Religion—Some of Them Will Surprise You!
You probably know about some of the more famous musicians who have made their faith public—Cat Stevens’ conversion to Islam, Bob Dylan’s to Christianity—but there are many more whose stories may surprise you. Sometimes it’s actually a rediscovery (many of them grew up in religious households, turned away from faith, and then rediscovered it later). So who are these stars who found God? By Nina Hämmerling SmithUndisputedly the most recognizable and revered reggae artist of all time, Bob Marley was only 36 when he died of cancer. His songs—including “One Love,” “Get Up Stand Up” and “War”—were not only great music; they spoke to social justice (and injustice) in Jamaica and beyond. The politics described so vividly in his lyrics were closely to his Rastafari beliefs. Although Archbishop Abuna Yesehaq spoke publicly after Marley’s death about having baptized him in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church about a year earlier, Marley’s conversion was kept mostly under wraps during his life. (There is a close correlation between the two faiths, but with several fundamental distinctions.) “Bob was really a good brother, a child of God, regardless of how people looked at him,” Yesehaq said in an interview. It remains controversial to this day, as he is still so closely associated with Rastafari.