The Algerian-born San Franciscan known as Cheb I Sabbah has been called a pioneer, an icon, even "legendary," and along with Bebel Gilberto he is one of the two best-selling artists on his label (the successful Six Degrees outfit based in his own adopted hometown). With a half-dozen cds released under his name, he now maintains a busy globetrotting performance schedule and spins his carefully crafted multinational traditional/electronic dance/folkloric blends to crowds ranging from small clubs to giant festivals. In short, Cheb I Sabbah is a star. If you meet him, though, you'd never guess...

Lissome Irish singer Sinead O'Connor has established an interantional reputation over the past couple of decades as an unrelenting rebel perhaps more famous for a radical act of revolt than for her intimate style of music. She attracted a storm of anger in the early '90s when she sang Bob Marley's "War" on Saturday Night Live, and then tore up a picture of the Pope at the end of her song in partial protest against child abuse...

It can't have been easy growing up as a natural child of Bob Marley. The original three kids -- David (Ziggy), Cedella and Stephen -- saw relatively little of their road-warrior parents as Bob Marley and the Wailers toured the world between Ziggy's birth in 1968 and Bob's illness in 1980. The kids were often looked after by grandmothers and other surrogates, and after Bob and their mother were shot in the 1976 terror attack on their home at 56 Hope Road in Kingston, the lives of the children (and Rita's daughter Sharon) changed forever -- and not for the better...