When they talk about music royalty, few come as royal as Selah Marley. Selah is the daughter of Grammy-winning superstar Lauryn Hill and football player Rohan Marley. Of course, this makes her the granddaughter of legendary reggae musician Bob Marley.
Selah has taken after her famous family and found her way into the entertainment business. She has dabbled in music, modeling, and acting while living the wildlife of a superstar’s offspring. In 2017, W Magazine helped Selah premiere her debut single, “Breathe.” Dubbed by the publication as “Full-Throated First Single,” Selah sang about overcoming a relationship that no longer served her. Despite thriving as a model, Selah said her foray into music is helping her find her voice and express herself creatively, something she cannot always do on the runway.
Selah Marley has starred in campaigns for Chanel, Ivy Park, Telfar, and Michael Kors, all the while gracing the covers of Wonderland, Flaunt, UK Sunday Times, and L’Uomo Vogue. She came a long way from her start in Teen Vogue at only 11 years old. She is a graduate of New York University and signed to Next Management.
Selah just starred in her most controversial modeling campaign to date. She was one of several models featured in Kanye West’s Yeezy Season 9 fashion show in Paris this week. The show made headlines because Kanye West had several models wear shirts reading “White Lives Matter.” While it is unclear what the statement is Kanye West was trying to make, many saw it as a slap in the face to an organization geared towards uplifting black people who suffer from police brutality, especially in cities like Chicago, where Kanye is from.
Selah was criticized, too, for starring in the show, especially considering her family’s ties to equality and social oppression. Selah, who famously put her own mother on blast in 2020, fired back at critics and called them closed-minded. “The past 24 hours have allowed me to realize that most of ya’ll are stuck in a hive mentality,” she said in a post. In her lengthy statement, she defended her right to expression without ever really explaining what the message was behind the shirts. See her full response below.
Imagine thinking your intentions matter when it comes to contributing to viral imagery for white supremacists. Reading Selah Marley parrot the same lines Kanye gives about “breaking free from an agenda” is depressing. the agenda is quite literally white supremacy. pic.twitter.com/MeIZur4RZQ
— millennial who loves tv and things (@MillennialAndTV) October 4, 2022
