Reggae Legend Performs "Rebel In Me"
Each week Nat Geo Music scours the far reaches of the internet to bring you the coolest new music videos from around the world.
This week we've got a brand new live performance from Jamaican reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, courtesy of Guitar Center in Hollywood, CA, where Cliff recently performed an amazing acoustic solo set and did a career-spanning interview with veteran music journalist Nic Harcourt (watch full session here).
Before Bob Marley broke big, Jimmy Cliff was reggae music's first international superstar - thanks largely to his searing performance as the lead in Perry Henzell's seminal 1972 film The Harder They Come. The soundtrack became one of the best-selling reggae albums of all time, and even folks who've never seen the film itself know Cliff for voicing struggler's anthems like "Many Rivers to Cross" and "You Can Get If You Really Want It".
In this clip, Cliff performs "Rebel In Me" from his 1998 album Higher and Higher (Island), and discusses that career-making role of wannabe-singer-turned-rudeboy Ivan - and how much he identified with the character's rebellious anger at a system that forced him into crime just to survive. Luckily for us, Jimmy caught better breaks than the character he portrayed, and used his sweet-but-rough voice to tell the stories of Kingston's ghetto strivers and rudeboys alike - securing his place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
Check it out!
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