Today the sun set a little dimmer over the shores of Freetown.
James Chambers better known as Jimmy Cliff, the immortal voice of “Many Rivers to Cross”, “You Can Get It If You Really Want”, “The Harder They Come” and “I Can See Clearly Now,” has left us at the age of 81.
When we heard the news there was quiet at first, then a flood of grief, memories, and endless replays of his songs.
For Sierra Leone, this is not just the passing of a global reggae legend. This is personal. Jimmy Cliff loved Salone with a depth that few outsiders ever show. More than once he said the words that still ring in our ears: “Sierra Leone is my home.”
He first came in the 1970s when our country was still “great at that time”, as he remembered it – before the war tried to tear the soul out of us.
He returned in November 2010, eight years after the guns finally went silent, when we were still bandaging wounds and learning how to smile again. He headlined the ECOWAS Peace Pageant at the Miatta Conference Hall in Youyi Building, a night many of us will never forget.
He walked on stage in his trademark black hat and radiant smile and told us, straight:
“It’s good to be at a time in Sierra Leone when it’s a rebirth… and it’s good to be a part of that.”
Then he gave the youth the message we desperately needed to hear:
“Upliftment… togetherness… Stay together… Unity is power.”
He closed the show with “I Can See Clearly Now” and the whole hall rose as one voice, singing with him, crying with him, believing for those few minutes that the rain really was gone.
Fifteen years later, that 2010 interview with Zoe Hamilton he gave right after the show recorded by Afrofusion TV is still being shared across WhatsApp groups https://youtu.be/i78Ji4q7I5Y. Watch it again. Listen to the gentleness in his voice when he speaks about our “rebirth”. That was not a publicity soundbite. That was a man who felt Africa in his bones and felt Sierra Leone in his heart.
Jimmy Cliff never just visited Africa; he breathed it. He briefly converted to Islam on this continent, drew strength from its spirit, bought land in Liberia, toured Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, East and Southern Africa but he kept coming back to #Salone in interviews, naming us alongside his most beloved places. “I love being in Africa,” he said in 2022, “I just love the atmosphere… Sierra Leone…”
His songs became the soundtrack of our recovery. “Many Rivers to Cross” was the hymn of every displaced person who walked home from Guinea or Liberia. “You Can Get It If You Really Want” was played when Ebola tried to finish what the war started and we refused to lie down. “I Can See Clearly Now” was the ringtone of hope. And when politicians lost office, it was only then that they paid attention to the words of “House of Exile.”
Jimmy Cliff never forgot us. We will never forget him. He did not just sing about overcoming. He lived it. And he believed we could too.
So, we will keep his fire burning. We will stay together. The lion, the first King of Reggae, has crossed his final river today, but the echoes of his roar will roll forever over the hills of Sierra Leone. From your Salone family, with all our love we say thank you, thank you, thank you.
Rest in perfect power, #JimmyCliff.