Thousands of reggae fans crowded a Kingston park to watch a screening of a documentary about Bob Marley, the charismatic figure of reggae music who brought the Jamaican musical genre to every corner of the globe.

As he got bigger, he didn’t change that much. Always stayed a very nice guy

Marley, which was released worldwide yesterday, premiered in his Caribbean homeland to high praise from Jamaicans who marvelled at footage showing the late singer’s impassioned interviews, family life and loose-limbed stage presence.

Drummers with their long dreadlocks tucked into crocheted caps performed traditional rhythms and chants before the film in homage to Marley’s Rastafarian faith.

It is the home-grown religion that reveres Ethiopia’s deceased Emperor Haile Selassie as a god and considers black people living outside Africa as captives in a foreign land.

Alvin “Seeco” Patterson was one of several reggae luminaries who sat in a VIP section with former prime ministers, ambassadors and businessmen before a big movie screen in Kingston’s Emancipation Park.

Marley’s widow, Rita, and other family members also joined the celebration.

“We started the music together. As he got bigger, he didn’t change that much. Always stayed a very nice guy,” said Mr Patterson, a close friend of the singer’s and a long-time percussionist in Bob Marley & The Wailers.

The documentary, a long-in-the-works project authorised by the Marley family, takes a linear, biographic approach that takes nearly two-and-a-half hours to tell the Jamaican songwriter’s life story through friends and relatives.

Born in rural St Ann parish in 1945, Marley rose from the gritty Kingston slum of Trench Town to global stardom in the 1970s with hits like No Woman, No Cry, Get Up, Stand Up, and I Shot the Sheriff.