BIOGRAPHY
Greetings to everyone ,my name is Jimmy Cliff, actor, music innovator, singer, songwriter, music producer, "Artivist", businessman, and much more...
I took on to myself that name with the intension of establishing myself thoughout this Planet, as high as the Cliff's of Adelphi Land where I was told I was born which seemed like the highest peak on the Earth to me as a child.
Adelphi Land is a village in the District of Somerton in the parish of St James Jamaica an Island in the Caribbean sea. That mission of establishing myself is more then half way there.
My parents named me James Chambers at birth and today they remain my hero and "Shero".
I was making music from the day I came out of my mothers woomb and said "AAAH" and I was acting since I can remember I could walk and laugh like my mother.
People would pay me to do that so acting is what I loved to do most and even today I think I am better at that than singing/songwriting.
I discovered I had a very unique voice in primary school and at the Pentacostal Church my family went to.
When the political landscape was changing in Jamaica as the Island had became independent from Britain, so the music was up beat expressing the spirit of the people to this change hence we got Ska an uptempo upbeat rhythm.
The Sound System was and is an integral part of the Jamaican social scene especially the working class who rely on this for their entertainment and social life. The middle and upper class fly to Miami and N.Y while the working class depend on the Sound System, which had an impact on my life from my boyhood days in the countryside of Jamaica where I could listen the Sound System at the big upstairs house that was beside the little house where I lived with my Father and my Brother.
This big upstairs downstairs house had a bar called " Money Rock Tavern " where the Sound System called "Pope Pius" would play and this was my me only opportunity to hear different kinds of music especially Latino.
My parents were staunch Christians so I was not permitted to associate with those kinds of music so I had to hide and steel away to go to the fair grounds where dances and fairs were held. I could see and learn the latest Dance moves and hear the latest, Rumba, R'n'B, Calypso, Merengay etc...
A little later in my youth life my Father managed to buy a little battery powered radio so I had another opportunity to tune in to American radio particularity New Orleans and Miami, and of course Cuba which is close to Jamaica only 90 miles away. On the local radio station I learned of local Artists writing and recording their own songs so I decided to write my own while still in school, quite a fete for a little country boy but I had high ambitions. Among the locals that inspired me wave Derrick Morgan, Prince Buster and Monty Morris.
After leaving primary school at Somerton my father took me to the capital of Jamaica Kingston to go to Kingston technical school, with a few songs in my head I had written. Where I was going to live was unknown but I ended up in East Kingston. Miss Gwen a stranger Lady said she would cook and wash my clothes while I slept with my cousin in his one rented room.
I was happy to be in Kingston to fulfil my dreams....
