Is This Love

Bob Marley and Kaya are the same calm in the form of a record. Recorded between Exodus and this release, the album breathes in a reggae that moves without haste, with lyrics that speak of weed and love as if they were the same. "Is This Love" is the song that best captures that essence: a melody that entwines itself in the bass of Aston "Family Man" Barrett and in the keyboards of Earl "Wya" Lindo, while Marley’s voice asks without urgency, as if time didn’t matter. The guitar riff — subtle yet sticky — appears and disappears, leaving room for Carlton Barrett’s drums to set a rhythm that isn’t rushed. It’s reggae that sounds like a Sunday afternoon, yet with a question that isn’t in a hurry to be answered.

They recorded it in London, with Chris Blackwell at the helm of production and Karl Pitterson handling the recording controls. The result was a single that reached number 9 on the UK charts in February 1978, just as the album hit the shelves. But the curious part is that, years later, in 2016, two Dutch producers — Lvndscape and Bolier — gave it an electronic twist and took it to number 16 in the same country. The original video, filmed at the Keskidee Arts Centre in London, has an unexpected detail: a seven-year-old Naomi Campbell, who would later become a global model, appears as part of the cast. The song also lives on in live form, captured in Paris that same year of 1978 for the album Babylon by Bus. And though the Kaya record faced criticism for its softness, this track proved Marley could make the relaxed sound universal.