Jimmy Cliff’s ‘I Can See Clearly Now,” released in 1993 by Chaos Records, a division of Sony music label has surpassed 150 million streams on Spotify. It is the St. James’ native’s first song to reach the milestone.
The cover of a Johnny Nash 1972 original song was recorded for the movie “Cool Runnings” and peaked at No. 18 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart making it his highest-charting single in the United States.
Internationally, the song hit No. 1 in France, Iceland, and New Zealand. The Scott Hamilton Kennedy directed music video has also surpassed 100 million streams on YouTube.
Nash’s version is certified Platinum in the US for selling more than one million units and Gold in the U.K. for earning 400,000 units of sales and streams.
Although Jimmy Cliff does not have a certified Gold of Platinum Record in the US or the U.K., some say he is partially responsible for the development of reggae music globally. He was the only Jamaican artist signed directly to Island Records in the 1960s and some of his records were put out on Blackwell’s Trojan label.
While at Island Jimmy starred in the film “Harder They Come” which is Jamaica’s most successful movie to date directed by Perry Henzel.
As teenagers in 1962, Cliff was who discovered Marley while they both had connections to Leslie Kong’s Beverley’s Records. Marley, who was working with Cliff’s friend Desmond Dekker in a welding shop, expressed his desire to have his songs recorded and persuaded by Marley, Cliff invited him to sing his songs. Eventually, Cliff arranged a recording session with Kong, resulting in Marley’s first two singles, “One Cup of Coffee” and “Judge Not,” along with the never-released “Terror.”
Eventually Jimmy Cliff left Island Records a week before Marley stepped into Blackwell’s office.
Subsequently, Cliff recorded a diss track for Blackwell titled “Rip Of Man” where he chided a cynical figure for ripping off both him and Marley.
Now signed to Universal Records, Cliff released his 40th album titled “Refugees” last August, which was accompanied by collaboration with the United Nations Refugee Agency.
“As a humanitarian, I wrote the song due to emotional feelings towards freedom taken away from human beings. None of us should be forced by violence, economics, war, or persecution to leave our country against our will,” Cliff said in a statement.
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