Kwame talks Birmingham musical One Love

He has won numerous awards, is a member of the board at the National Theatre and became only the second black Briton to stage a play in the West End.

More recently, he became the artistic director of an American theatre, in Baltimore, where he wrote and produced a tribute to Bob Marley, called One Love. And the play will visit Birmingham's REP for its month-long British premiere from this evening until April 8.

Kwame says: "Few artists have had as big an effect on the world as Bob Marley. Even fewer as big an effect on me. I feel continually blessed and honoured to dance with Bob in this way."

The musical tells the story of a man propelled from rising reggae star to global icon, and brings Bob's music catalogue to the stage for the first time. To help unite his beloved homeland of Jamaica, which is on the brink of a civil war, he must first find his own peace.

As a teenager in London, Kwame despised Bob and other reggae artists.

"My sister loved Bob Marley and reggae, and that meant I had to hate it," he says.

"Jamaican culture in Britain was the dominant black culture of my youth, but I pulled myself away from that just because of sibling rivalry."

By the end of his teens, he'd seen the light and became to appreciate Bob's genius. "It was his lyrics that brought me in."

Kwame is under no illusions about who the star of his new show is: not him.

"I've had to think: How many people are coming to hear the work of Kwame Kwei-Armah, and how many are coming to hear Bob Marley? Once I was clear on that, I got my ego out of the way."

One Love: The Bob Marley Musical is a spiritual and political journey which celebrates one of the world's most influential artists of all time by bringing Bob's inspirational music catalogue to the stage for the first time.

The compelling original musical features Bob's greatest songs performed live on stage, including – No Woman No Cry, Exodus, Jamming and many more.

Marley is at the centre of One Love. Kwame has focused the action on an emblematic portion of the singer's life and career: the nearly two-year period in the late 1970s when, after an assassination attempt in Kingston that injured him and members of his family, Bob holed up in London and made two of his most acclaimed albums, Exodus and Kaya.

"I wanted to find the moment in this man's life that typifies him, that was a manifestation of him.

"I hope it's more of an emotional ride than a documentary. We're seeing a man at a particular moment, one many people describe as most fertile time in his life."

Bob made many of his most iconic songs during the period, including Three Little Birds, One Love, Is This Love and Jamming.

Kwame dwells on Bob's story as a man propelled from rising reggae star to global icon. With unprecedented access to the entire Bob Marley catalogue, the musical features Bob's greatest songs performed live by the cast.

Kwame believes black heroes are hugely important in contemporary culture. He experienced racial prejudice at school, maltreatment by the police and tensions that were commonplace as he grew up.

He looked to others, such as Muhammed Ali, for hope. "One of the few times in the world you would see a person of colour on the television was Ali fighting," he says. "Here was someone who said, 'I'm black and I'm the best that there is' – that was a revelation. I'd see my father rolling with every punch and while my mother disapproved of boxing she would stand in the doorway, looking in."

One Love features Mitchell Brunings, who will make his UK stage debut as Bob Marley alongside Alexia Khadime who will play Rita Marley. Alexia's major West End roles include Nabulungi in The Book of Mormon, Eponine in Les Misérables, Elphaba in Wicked and Nala in The Lion King.

One Love also features local talents, with Birmingham-born Thomas Vernal playing Claudie Massop. Delroy Brown, also from Birmingham, (King David: Man of Blood, The Harder They Come, Theatre Royal Stratford East; Scott and Bailey, ITV) plays Bob's's manager, Don Taylor.