“I have a dislike for politicians as they’re not truthful people. It’s the nature of politics that you cannot be straight, you have to lie and cheat,” said the reggae singer Jimmy Cliff, who died on November 24 at the age of 81.
Cliff was born James Chambers on July 30 July 1944 in Somerton, Saint James Parish, Jamaica. Long before luminaries such as Bob Andy, the Wailers, Lee Perry and others had made an indelible mark on Jamaican popular music, Cliff had taken the genre to “foreign” – not just to the US or the UK but around the world. Suffice to say Cliff was reggae’s first international star.
His career started seriously with ska recordings for legendary Chinese-Jamaican producer Leslie Kong on his Beverly’s label. As well as being a musician, Cliff acted as an artist and repertoire representative, finding and developing new talent for Kong.
