| My life with Fela – Jimmy
Cliff, reggae legend
By TOSIN AJIRIRE and STEPHEN ALAYANDE
Saturday,
November 21, 2009
|
•Jimmy
Cliff performing after the award
Photo: Sun News Publishing |
| |
The story of reggae music will not be complete without Jimmy
Cliff. Though, not a Rastafarian, he is a torchbearer for
roots reggae, a genre of reggae that emphasizes social justice
and self-consciousness.
Born in St. Catherine, Jamaica, on April 1, 1948, with the
less prosaic name James Chambers, Jimmy Cliff’s talent
was obvious from childhood, and he began his career appearing
at local shows and parish fairs. At 14, he felt ready for
the big time, moved to Kingston, and took the surname Cliff
to express the heights he intended on reaching.
In 1968, Cliff released his debut album, the excellent Hard
Road to Travel, and won the International Song Festival with
Waterfall, a song which was a smash hit in Brazil. He swiftly
moved to that country to take advantage of his success, but
even greater heights were in the offing. The following year,
“Wonderful World, Beautiful People” proved to
be his international breakthrough. The single soared to number
six on the British charts, and charmed its way into the Top
25 in the States. Not surprisingly, the anti-war follow-up,
Vietnam, proved to be less popular, even if Bob Dylan called
it the best protest song he’d ever heard. Regardless,
Cliff’s album, 1969’s Wonderful World, was critically
acclaimed, and saw the singer starting to build a following
among the AOR crowd.
The title track, a cover of Cat Steven’s Wild World,
was another smash in 1970, while Desmond Dekker took Cliff’s
own You Can Get It if You Really Want to number two in Britain.
1973’s Unlimited, 1974’s Struggling Man, and the
following year’s Brave Warrior were unable to sustain
the success of Another Cycle, never mind improve on it. During
this time, Cliff had converted to Islam and traveled to Africa
in search of his roots. His new found religious devotion began
to heavily influence his music. In 1975, with the release
of The Harder They Come in the U.S., Cliff’s second
album for the year, Follow My Mind, immediately grabbed America’s
attention and became his first album to reach into the bottom
of the chart. Reprise now decided it was time for a greatest-hits
collection, although this would be accomplished via a live
album. Rolling Stones’ producer Andrew Loog Oldham was
brought in to oversee the project, and Cliff was sent out
on the road to tour and record.
What the label then received was one of Cliff’s most
ferocious albums to date, Live — In Concert. The singer
was not ready to wallow in nostalgia, and across the rest
of the decade he continued releasing albums that were thoroughly
modern in sound and fierce in delivery. Cliff closed his account
with Reprise in the new decade with 1981’s “Give
the People What They Want, and moved to Columbia. He formed
a new backing band, Oneness, and embarked on a tour of the
U.S. with Peter Tosh, there was also a fabulous performance
at Reggae Sunsplash that year. 1983’s The Power and
the Glory inaugurated his partnership with Kool & the
Gang, and the album was nominated for a Grammy. Its follow-up,
Cliff Hanger, would win the award in 1985. However, 1989’s
Hanging Fire would be his last for Columbia, although the
singer continued to release both singles and albums both in
Jamaica and the U.K.
During this period, Cliff also co-starred in the movie Club
Paradise. He returned to the U.S. charts in 1993, when his
cover of I Can See Clearly Now, from the soundtrack for Cool
Runnings, glided into the Top 20. More singles and albums
have followed, and the singer remains a potent musical force.
A comeback album of sorts, Black Magic, which featured duets
with high profile stars like Sting, Joe Strummer, Wyclef Jean
and others, appeared from Artemis Records in 2004.
However, it was in the recognition of his humanitarian services
to mankind through advocating against injustice, war, racism,
and for being a role model for the youth that ECOWAS has deemed
it fit to honour the living legend and icon of music with
the prestigious award of ECOWAS Peace Ambassador at the glamorous
Miss ECOWAS Peace Pageant held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State
last Saturday. Blockbuster had an exclusive interview with
Jimmy Cliff, who opened up on sundry issues including his
impending collaboration with Afro hip-hop star, Tuface Idibia
and life with late Afrobeat musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.
Enjoy:
Impression about Nigeria
Nigeria is full of energy, full of strong energy; everybody
is vibrant, looking for a way to better themselves. I like
the energy of Nigerians. In fact, Nigerian girls are all really
very beautiful, no doubt about that.
On ECOWAS Peace Ambassador
award
I’m honored to receive such an award. I think it’s
a prestigious award. ECOWAS is a very important organisation
here in West Africa, and I’m hoping that it’s
something that the rest of Africa can follow in uniting, and
in a short run we will have a united Africa. The message is
to make peace first with yourself. As an individual, make
peace with yourself then exuberate that peace outward to your
family, your neighbourhood, your country and to the rest of
the world, most especially to the Black family in the Diaspora.
Peace is a big necessity. It is one of the challenges we have
to overcome.
On Black Magic
It’s true that you have not got my last album here in
Nigeria. My last album was about four years ago. It’s
called “Black Magic”, and I did a lot of duets
with a number of people like Wyclef Jean, Sting, Dannie Lenoks,
Cholks Stroma, Tony Rebel in Jamaica, and Yanic Nowel in France
and quite a few people, what really happened was that there
was some discrepancies with the label, I think that was why
the album never really got to reach down here.
On my new album
The new album will be released in the spring of 2010. I recorded
it in my own studio in Jamaica. I just have a few finishing
touches to do on it. No collaboration with any artiste. I
wrote the song all by myself. It’s all a new song except
for one that I co-wrote with Joe Hit. He passed on recently.
He is a very good friend of mine. He had the song and I just
put new lyrics to it, Except for that all the other songs
are my compositions.
On rap taking over reggae
Maybe its due to your experiences of what’s happening
in Africa in the area of what you call rap because we call
it Dee Jay in Jamaica, what is called rap today in America
we actually started that in Jamaica, we call it Dee Jay. We
called it toasting on the sound system and when it featured
in the United States, American youth who hang out in Brooklyn,
Bronx and all the areas where we have Jamaican community,
and we carried our culture of the sound system with us there,
they picked up on it and put their own experience, then you
got what is called rap today. Rap/Dee Jay is not the only
area of reggae music that is very vibrant today, we have Roots
& Culture that is still very vibrant, people like Touress
Railly, Queen Africa, Derris Hammond and quite a lot more
so, what am I doing? I’m a singer first of all you know,
I’ve a little bit of DJ/rap in my album. I know how
to do that too but my best expression is in singing, and is
still very vibrant. People still want that at any cost.
Me, music and movies
I’ve been on tour every year except this year when I
chose not to tour because I put it aside to complete the new
album, so touring is one of the aspects of my career, acting
is another aspect. I’ve also been working on movie scripts,
and even when I’m not recording I’m still very
busy. I’m working on books. As I said, I tour constantly
every year except this year. Mainly, I tour in Europe, US
is a place where I always tour as well but I want to wait
and complete this album before I touch the US, I’ve
not toured Africa and South America.
My life with Fela
Actually, I knew Fela quite well. Fela and I have toured the
United States together on the same bill. In my view, Fela
was really a bright musician. After Fela, I heard that there
were musicians like Sunny Ade. I love the drums and the beats
he plays along with the guitar; that was quite unique. I heard
some of the music of Tuface which is quite good too. I like
it. So, Nigeria is producing good artistes and good music.
If the opportunity arises, may be I would do a collabo with
Tuface.
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