Cedella Marley Booker has joined her son sitting on the left hand of Jah, believing the reggae prophet had been killed by the forces of darkness.
Booker, 82, mother of global icon Bob Marley, died Tuesday night in her South Florida home after a long illness.
She was surrounded by loved ones inside her South Miami-Dade home and was "'very happy and very peaceful", said daughter-in-law Sharien Booker said.
"Her vision was always to bring people together. She was a very loving person, and we know she's happy."
Grandson, Ky-Mani told The Miami Herald she had always been a "caring and supporting person in my life. She was always there to help me even when I didn't ask for help, she knew I needed help. She had that instinct to know when things were wrong and had the courage to fix it."
"Mrs Booker was the matriarch of a movement so powerful that the mystical qualities of the Marley musical legacy remain strong and potent," said Jamaican Information Minister Olivia Grange.
"She was a star in her own right," Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding said. "Her life was one of hardship, struggle and eventual fulfilment, and through it all, she exuded hope, strength and confidence."
Born in Jamaica in 1926, Booker was 18 when she married Norval Marley, a 50-year-old British quartermaster. After he died in 1955, she married Edward Booker, moved to Delaware, then relocated to Miami, where she lived for the past 20 years.
Booker was best-known for her famous son, but she was an author and musician. Her two books about Bob Marley 1997s Bob Marley: An Intimate Portrait by His Mother and Bob Marley, My Son in 2003 offered glimpses into his personal life, shedding light on his relationships with his wife Rita and bandmates Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer. Bob Marley died in Miami from a brain tumour in 1981.
Booker released two albums, Awake Zion in 1991, and in the following year a collection of Caribbean folk songs for children called Smilin' Island of Song. She frequently performed with her grandsons Ky-Mani, Ziggy, Stephen, Damian and Julian.
Booker is survived by two children, Claudette Livingston and Richard Booker, and 52 grandchildren.
She is to be buried tomorrow Fiji time in Miami.
The death of the Rastafarian prophet who gave meaning to life to millions of people across the universe in the prime of his career, shocked family, friends, music lovers and the Rasta faithful.
Marley died in Miami on his way back to Jamaica after undergoing a radical cancer treatment in the then West Germany.
The matriarch Marley, in an interview with the Classical Reggae Interviews website, lamented the death of her world-changing son, the Third World's greatest hero.
"I don't think that Bob have cancer. If Bob have cancer, I think it was injected in him in some way.
"I really do think so. I don't think he really had cancer. I don't think so. But that's what they say."
She does not say who she means by "they" but her claims add fuel to long suppressed Rasta suspicions that Marley, whose rise, progress and growing influence over the world was monitored by groups like the Central Intelligence Agency, did not die a natural death.
"Definitely! They did something with him," Cedella said.
She believed Marley was "got at" in Miami. "In Miami. Yes, and then, you know, I said because it was so senseless and what can I do? My son is already dead! And I couldn't understand why.
"But I said, you know, I leave all vengeance to God. I will not try to fight them. Because I know I can't.
"But I know Jah fight for me."
On reggae's future, Cedella said: "A world without music is it would be a dead world!
"But on the other hand again there are some music that are more touching.
"I'm hoping and praying that reggae will reach many hearts because reggae music has changed so many people through the message that Bob has brought to the world.
"I'm sure those people who take the time out to write to me and to explain to me the change that has been in their lives from Bob's music, I don't think they would do that for nothing.
"They mean it, they feel it and that's why they reveal it.
"So I know that they are really feeling the depths of his message and I pray and thank Jah for that because as Bob say: Whoever don't hear the message in my music I feel sorry for them.
"And I do, too, because I can feel the depths of where that was coming from deep from within him that love that teach us hope that everyone hear this music and understand themselves."
Cedella picked Three Little Birds, No Woman No Cry and then I, (starts singing) I and I are the roots. Dread Kinky Dread. I and I are the roots. (again speaking) Some are leaves. Some are branches. But I n I are the roots!' I love that one! Yes. I love that! But there's so much ... I love all of them! I love all of them!"
Jah live.