Information Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. Nov. 27, 2025: This week introduced a type of information that stops you the place you stand. The good Jimmy Cliff handed away, and for many people scattered throughout the Jamaican diaspora, his dying felt private in a means that’s tough to clarify. You don’t have to satisfy somebody for them to form your life. You don’t want to shake their hand for his or her voice to information you thru childhood. Generally an artist turns into so deeply woven into your reminiscence that shedding them looks like shedding a relative.
For me, that second got here when my mom referred to as and mentioned, “Nyan, Jimmy Cliff died.” She is aware of what his music meant to me. She is aware of what it meant to our dwelling. She is aware of what it meant to the hundreds of kids who grew up in locations the place hope felt like a luxurious and the place wrestle was the closest factor to regular. When she instructed me the information, it was as if your complete weight of my childhood stirred inside me. The world was rightfully honoring a world icon, however these of us who grew up in inner-city Kingston felt one thing even deeper. We have been mourning the person who helped carry us by a number of the hardest days of our lives.
Jimmy Cliff was a musician to the world, however to inner-city Jamaica he was one thing else fully. He was the storyteller who made our ache “speakable.” He was the prophet who reassured us that brighter days would come. He was the acquainted voice that traveled by zinc fences, wood home windows, tight alleys, crowded yards, and tiny kitchens full of the scent of Sunday dinners. When he sang about rivers, rainbows, and sunshine, he was giving language to experiences we had no phrases for.
Circa 1997
To grasp the depth of this loss, one should first perceive the surroundings the place Jimmy Cliff’s music took root. As a younger boy rising up in Kingston, I lived in a home constructed from wooden and secured by a roof of zinc sheets that rattled when the wind blew. Political violence had turn out to be part of our backdrop. Poverty was not a passing situation however the body by which we seen the world. Our houses stood on fragile foundations of plywood and hope, and many people have been raised by moms and grandmothers who stretched what little they needed to preserve us secure.
An instance of a house in Jamaica Nineties
In these circumstances music was greater than leisure. It was survival. It was remedy. It was companionship. It was the one factor able to lifting our spirits on days when the whole lot else felt too heavy. Kids of my technology realized to lean on music the best way others leaned on social applications or security nets. We didn’t have these. We had the radio. And on many nights, when the breeze moved softly by the wood boards of our dwelling, Jimmy Cliff’s voice crammed the gaps between wrestle and creativeness.
His lyrics weren’t summary poetry. They have been reflections of the very world we have been dwelling in. When he sang “Many rivers to cross, however I can’t appear to seek out my means over,” he was not talking metaphorically to youngsters like us. He was naming the burden of poverty. He was capturing the exhaustion of households who fought for survival someday at a time. He was placing melody to the emotional and financial rivers we needed to cross. Every verse felt like a confession we have been too younger to articulate, but sufficiently old to know in our bones.
That tune turned an anthem for numerous Jamaicans who felt caught between the place they have been and the place they hoped to be. It held the strain of wanting extra however having so little, of dreaming massive however dwelling small, and of waking each morning with a coronary heart that refused to surrender. For these of us raised in inner-city Kingston, the road “This loneliness gained’t depart me alone” was not merely a lyric. It was the fact of watching fathers disappear into the evening, brothers get pulled into violence, and associates migrate solely to turn out to be distant reminiscences.
Jimmy Cliff sang into these wounds, and in some way his voice made the loneliness really feel lighter.
One other tune, “You Can Get It If You Actually Need,” turned the anthem of dedication for Jamaica’s poorest communities. It reminded us that effort had worth, even when alternatives didn’t. It inspired the idea that perseverance may bend circumstances. Though the world usually quoted the road “however you should attempt, try to attempt” as motivational recommendation, these phrases meant one thing totally different to a toddler who needed to battle for the whole lot, together with pleasure.
Then there was “I Can See Clearly Now,” a tune that captured the promise of higher days with a simplicity solely Jimmy Cliff may ship. When he sang in regards to the sunshine he had been praying for, these of us who grew up navigating hazard, starvation, and instability knew precisely what he meant. We prayed for a similar factor. We prayed for a break within the wrestle. We prayed for a future that felt safer. We prayed for a day when our rivers would now not really feel so deep.
I usually assume again to these early years. I can nonetheless see my mom getting ready dinner in our small wood kitchen as Jimmy’s music rose from the radio within the nook. The home was easy, however his voice gave it heat. There have been instances after I would sit close to the window, listening to the sound of the zinc roof increasing below the warmth, and for a second the difficulties of life appeared manageable. Music has a means of coloring even the darkest reminiscences. And Jimmy Cliff was a part of the colour that allowed many people to hope.
As I grew older and finally migrated, his songs continued to accompany me. They stayed with me by new challenges and unfamiliar worlds. Music like his turns into a part of your id, particularly when it represents the place that raised you. It’s no coincidence that I later wrote Echoes of Ska, a guide that celebrates the early sounds of Jamaica’s musical evolution. I feel, in some ways, the guide was my means of honoring the artists who gave us one thing to carry onto when life felt unbearably heavy. It was a tribute to the lads like Jimmy Cliff who formed not solely our tradition however our resilience.
His passing forces us to replicate on the deeper metaphor in his music. Jimmy Cliff understood rivers, not simply as our bodies of water however as symbols of hardship, perseverance, and transformation. A river will be an impediment or a path. It may well separate or carry. It may well drown or ship. In our lives, all of us face rivers that really feel unattainable to cross. For some, it’s poverty. For others, it’s violence, grief, trauma, or the quiet battles that nobody sees.
Jimmy spent his life singing about these crossings. And in doing so, he ready us for ours.
Once I consider his dying, I think about the river he so steadily sang about. He has now reached the tip of it. He has crossed the ultimate stretch that no human returns from. For a person who carried the burdens of tens of millions by his music, it feels becoming that his remaining relaxation is framed by the metaphor he gave us. He has reached the aspect the place ancestors stand ready. He has arrived at a peace he helped so many people think about throughout our hardest days.
The grief many Jamaicans really feel at present is layered. It’s grief for an artist, sure, but in addition grief for part of our previous. Jimmy Cliff was one of many voices that formed the emotional panorama of Jamaica’s interior cities. His music traveled by generations, binding households collectively by rhythm and resilience. His dying reminds us of a time when wrestle was all we knew, but we survived as a result of voices like his reassured us that our rivers may very well be crossed.
For the diaspora, the ache is exclusive. We stock our nation in our hearts, not in our day by day surroundings. When a cultural big falls, the space feels heavier. His music related us to dwelling even when dwelling felt distant. Now that he has departed, the nostalgia grows louder. His songs turn out to be each reminiscence and mourning.
As a author, I really feel a duty to honor his legacy. Echoes of Ska now holds a deeper which means for me, as a result of it displays the very basis Jimmy Cliff helped construct. With out artists like him, there can be no tales to go down, no cultural reminiscence to protect, and no soundtrack to remind us of who we’re. His contributions formed the platform from which many people now converse, write, and create.
Jimmy Cliff’s journey has ended, however his music will proceed to information others throughout their very own rivers. The melodies that after drifted by wood homes in Kingston will preserve touring by generations lengthy in any case of us are gone. His voice will stay a bridge from hardship to hope, from sorrow to renewal, and from loneliness to the consolation of figuring out that brighter days can and do come.
He has crossed over. He has reached the far aspect of the river he sang about. And for these of us who stay, the music he left behind will proceed to gentle the best way.
Could his soul discover relaxation. Could his legacy reside on. And will each youngster in Jamaica who nonetheless sits in a tiny wood home below a zinc roof hear his voice and consider that they, too, could make it to the sunshine he promised.
Jimmy, you’ve crossed the river and from me to you, “right here is the sunshine you’ve been praying for.” With love.
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