The death of Jimmy Cliff, announced on Monday, brings to a close one of the brightest chapters in Jamaican music. The singer, songwriter and actor – responsible for bringing reggae to the world even before Bob Marley exploded – leaves a legacy that spans generations, continents and genres. In Brazil, a country with which he maintained an enduring emotional and artistic relationship, the news resonated even more strongly.
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Jimmy Cliff has passed away at the age of 81. The artist lived in Kingston, but remained active in composing and preparing new projects. His death comes just a few years after he released his final single, “Human Touch,” which featured a return to 1960s reggae and meditations on loneliness in times of pandemic.
Cliff’s Farewell revives memories of his deep connection to Brazil, where he wrote crucial chapters in his professional and personal life.
The relationship began in 1968, when he arrived in Rio to defend the song “Waterfall” at the International Song Festival in Maracanazinho. The visit changed him. Inspired by the local energy, he began writing “Wonderful World, Beautiful People,” one of his most famous songs. In the same year, he recorded the LP “Jimmy Cliff in Brasil”, whose booklet shows him in front of Praia de Botafogo and includes English versions of “Andança” and “Vesti azul”.
During the 1980s, Cliff visited the country so many times that he became something of folklore among Rio fans – it was common to joke that all you had to do was walk through the southern region to find him. He himself laughed about it, saying that he did not know exactly how long he had lived in Brazil.
“I think I spent about five years there,” he once said, amused by the rumor that his wife was Brazilian. -But she is Moroccan.
In 1984, he strengthened his connection with Rio by recording a video on the beaches of Rio entitled “We Are All One”, directed by Tezuka Yamasaki. He expanded ties with Bahia, a state where he delved into the history of the country’s African diaspora and found a kind of spiritual reunion.
– Seeing this and being a part of it is exciting – he said of his connection with Afro-Brazilian culture.
In El Salvador, in 1992, his daughter Nabiya B was born, as a result of his relationship with psychologist Sonia Gomez da Silva. Years later, Nabiya made her film debut in Black Panther, a global Marvel phenomenon, which brought palpable pride to her father.
Bahia was also one of the most sensitive episodes of his career. In 1980, moments before he was to take the stage alongside Gilberto Gil, Cliff received the news of his father’s death. Despite his sadness, he decided to sing:
-There was a very strong energy that night. I could hear myself singing with a power I had never felt before.
Brazil also followed Jimmy Cliff’s expansion into cinema. In 1972, he starred in “The Harder They Come” (“Bloody Ballad”), a film that opened the international doors to reggae and Rastafarian culture. Decades later, Cliff revisited the classic song by singing the Brazilian version “Querem meu sang” with Titàs on “Acústico MTV.”
But his presence in the country was not only artistic. Cliff loved Brazil like someone finding a second home, for the landscapes, the historical connections and, above all, the people. He always repeated that he missed Rio and “African Bahia.”
The news of his death ends a story that has deeply influenced Brazilian music and inspired generations of local artists. But his legacy lives on – in the records, in the stages that welcomed him and in the memories spread across Rio, Bahia and the many other parts of the country that welcomed him as one of their citizens.
Jimmy Cliff says goodbye but stays. In every chord, in every version of “Many Rivers to Cross,” in every memory recorded under the Brazilian sun. The sound that crossed the world is now finding its rest, while reggae music loses another of its giants.