I had the global outlook that I really wanted to capture the world. I would like the attention of the world at least and I wanted that.
I have not become the artist I believe I am. I want to become a stadium act. I'm not done at all.
I would love to see no more ghettos but the things is, there's no diplomacy in the ghetto. They want to tell you something, they tell you straight!
My role is the shepherd's role. The shepherd is the one who opens the gate and allows the flock to go through and whoever opens the gate has to close it, and the gate is not yet closed.
It was the vehicle that propelled me to international stardom. ("Harder They Come") I was known as a singer/songwriter before that, but people did not know me as an actor. It showed the world where the music I contributed to create was coming from. It opened the gates for Jamaican music, internationally.
The love is the part of us that can never go. It's the essence that was always there, so that can never go.
We're coming into a rebirth of the planet. And some cultures have echoed it, such as the Mayans have echoed that, and it came from the ancient Egyptians.
Look at what's happening with scientific things. They have discovered dark matter. They have discovered what is called the God Particle. All that is going to make religion obsolete. These are the things that are amazing, and it's an amazing time to be living in. It's a higher energy that we're going to be coming into.
I don't think a songwriter should lose their mojo. In my situation, I'm one of those artists that lasts over a long period rather than have your moment and your moment is gone.
Since we're coming into a rebirth, and there's a consciousness of health, because the disease that is death, we are able to overcome that.
My pigment is of the earth, and collecting my sacred fire from my solar plexus with the central sun of the earth.
People might say, 'Jimmy Cliff, you've done a lot, achieved a lot. What more can you want?
Just over two thousand years ago, this planet went through a change, and it's a normal thing for every two thousand three hundred years a planet to go through a new change; new laws, new things is happening.
I live between Jamaica and Paris.
I'm very attached to my family and protective of them and miss them, and that situation, my connection with that can make me become very vulnerable.
If I don't channel pain into a song, I play my guitar or play the piano or play my drums, or go swimming.
I am not one of those artists who is cemented in one way. I am able to, you know, make the happy, jovial, lighthearted music too. We need that in life too. So it's like that to me.
I write songs on a universal basis. I was born out of the earth of Jamaica which I consider to be a part of Atlantis, the sunk continent, but that's my thing. But I write songs on a universal basis, not like Jamaican songs.
Certain artists have a role to echo the echoes of the people and that's what I'll be doing on my next album.
I visit studios. Just to get the feel, the smell, and see what other people are doing. Not only listening to the radio, but going to studios, greeting musicians and artists, just getting a vibe.
I'm an artist. And I'm happy that I was there at the commencement of this music, this Jamaican music, to put my contribution and help to establish it.
