Which Bob Marley song was banned in South Africa during apartheid?

The Bob Marley song banned in South Africa during apartheid was “Get Up, Stand Up.” Co-written by Marley and Peter Tosh, it appeared on The Wailers’ 1973 album Burnin’, whose songs confronted colonialism, inequality, and religious oppression.

The song’s direct demand that oppressed people defend their rights made it especially threatening to apartheid-era censorship authorities. South Africa’s state-controlled broadcasting system restricted reggae and other music associated with protest, Black political consciousness, and liberation movements. Marley’s music nevertheless circulated through imported records, informal copying, and underground listening.

A common mix-up is “War,” another strongly political Marley recording whose words draw on a 1963 speech by Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. “Zimbabwe” also became an important liberation anthem, but “Get Up, Stand Up” is the standard answer to this specific trivia question. The song remains one of Marley and Tosh’s clearest statements against passive acceptance of injustice.