By Tommy Kennedy IV
Sad news travels differently when it carries a voice you grew up with. Jimmy Cliff has passed, and something in the world feels thinner for it. A proper giant gone. A man who pushed Jamaican music into every corner of the planet.
I carried The Harder They Come album for years. The sleeve got worn soft at the edges from being handled so much. That record wasn’t just a soundtrack; it was a kind of compass. It told you where defiance lived and where hope could still breathe. Back when I lived and played in Jamaica, gigging at the Bloom of Light, that album sat at the heart of the room. Heat rising off the stage, people swaying, bottles clinking, and Jimmy Cliff running through the speakers like he owned every inch of the night.
Reggae legends often get spoken about like they belong to the past, but Jimmy Cliff carried something timeless. He wasn’t nostalgic. He was alive and pushing forward, even when the world tried to pin him in one place. His voice cut clean through the air — sharp, bright, and stubborn. You hear it once and you never mistake it again.
If I had to pick one track that still hits with full force, it’s the title tune from both the film and the album
“The Harder They Come.”
That song is built on grit. Built on struggle. Built on the idea that you keep fighting even when the ceiling feels like it’s pressing down on your skull. It’s a proper anthem for anyone who’s been pushed to the edge and refused to fall.
Play it today. Let it fill the room. Let it carry the weight it always carried — Jamaica’s heartbeat, the spirit of resistance, the voice of a man who turned his whole life into a message the world couldn’t ignore.
Jimmy Cliff wasn’t just a reggae pioneer. He was part of the architecture of Caribbean music. A bridge between ska, reggae, film, the diaspora, protest, joy, and every lived experience in between. The Harder They Come didn’t just shape the soundtrack to a film. It shaped a generation’s understanding of Jamaican culture and gave reggae its international pulse.
So here’s to him.
A man who left more than songs behind.
A man who gave the world a new way of listening.
Jimmy Cliff — rest in paradise. Your music still rises.
