The Buffalo Soldiers were a segregated regiment of black cavalry fighters during the American campaign to rid the West of "Indians" so that "civilized" white people could gain the lands used by Native Americans. Ironically, many of the soldiers were slaves taken from Africa. Bob Marley gives a small history lesson as a protest song about the black man's role in building the country that continues to oppress him.
Released two years after Marley's death, this song was one of the last that he recorded. Issued as a single, it reached #4 on the UK charts, where Marley had as much success posthumously as he did when he was alive: seven more released charted after this one. The song was included on Confrontation (1983), which was the first Bob Marley album released after his death, and also on the hits collection Legend (1984), which became the best-selling reggae album of all time.
Marley wrote this song with fellow Jamaican, Noel Williams, who went by the name King Sporty. Williams was an inventive creator of dance music, blending reggae and disco on his 1975 track "Music Maker," and impelling the Miami bass sound as a producer of tracks like "Funky Fresh Beat" by Youth MC's, released in 1986.
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