Smile Jamaica concert and the shooting at 56 Hope Road (1976)

Well supported

Two days before a free concert scheduled for 5 December 1976 — announced by the Manley government in a period of severe political violence, and read by many as aligned with the PNP whatever the organisers intended — gunmen entered Bob Marley's home at 56 Hope Road and shot Marley, his wife Rita, and manager Don Taylor. All survived. Marley performed at the concert regardless, then left Jamaica for what became roughly eighteen months abroad. No one was ever convicted. It is the sharpest illustration of the cost of the period: an artist did not have to declare a side to be treated as having one.