This was Marley's last single before his death on May 11, 1981. It sums up his life and what he stood for in his songs: freedom and redemption. Marley was a very spiritual singer who gave hope to the downtrodden in his native Jamaica, and whose message spread to the United States and around the world when he became a star.

Marley completed the Uprising album (his last) in the summer of 1980. He was suffering from the cancer that would eventually kill him at age 36, but was very productive in his later years. He refused traditional medicine because of his Rastafarian beliefs and chose to make music and perform as long as he could.

This song drew from the works of the civil-rights campaigner Marcus Garvey, who in a 1937 speech said: "We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind." This can be heard in Marley's lyric: Emancipate yourself from mental slavery None but ourselves can free our minds Garvey's 1923 book The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey contains this preface, which is likely where Marley got the idea for "Redemption," which he used in the title: "Dedicated to the true and loyal members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in the cause of African redemption."