Jimmy Cliff, the legendary Jamaican reggae singer, musician, and actor, has died at the age of 81.

Cliff’s death was announced by his wife, Latifa Chambers. His wife stated that he passed away on November 24, 2025, after a seizure followed by pneumonia.

“It’s with profound sadness that I share that my husband, Jimmy Cliff, has crossed over due to a seizure followed by pneumonia,” she wrote.

This report from TVC News Digital covers the basic facts concerning the life and career of the legendary reggae musician.

Born James Chambers in 1948, Cliff grew up as the eighth of nine children in abject poverty in the parish of St. James, Jamaica.

Blessed with a sweet and attention catching voice, he began singing at his local church at the age of six.

James began writing songs while still at primary school in St. James, listening to a neighbour’s sound system.

At age 14, he relocated to Kingston and adopted the surname Cliff to express the heights he intended on reaching.

He recorded several singles before topping the Jamaican charts with his own composition, Hurricane Hattie.

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In 1965, he relocated to London to work with Island Records – later the home of Bob Marley – but the label’s attempts to make his sound palatable to rock audiences weren’t entirely successful at first.

He struck gold with the 1969 single Wonderful World, Beautiful People – an upbeat, feelgood anthem; and the more politically-charged Vietnam, which Bob Dylan called “the best protest song ever written”.

But Cliff became an international star with The Harder They Come, expressly written for the movie of the same name, in which he played Ivan Martin, a young man trying to break into Jamaica’s corrupt music industry.

“The film opened the door for Jamaica,” Cliff recalled. “It said, ‘This is where this music comes from.'”

His other recordings included the Grammy Award-winning albums Cliff Hanger (1985) and Rebirth (2012); and Cliff was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.

Cliff was best known among mainstream audiences for songs such as Many Rivers to Cross, You Can Get It If You Really Want, The Harder They Come, Reggae Night, and his covers of Hakuna Matata, Cat Stevens’s Wild World and Johnny Nash’s I Can See Clearly Now from the film Cool Runnings.

He starred in the film The Harder They Come, which helped popularize reggae around the world, and Club Paradise.

Cliff was one of five performers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.