Jimmy Cliff stays 'rock steady'

In the Caribbean, Africa, and Latin America, the film gave the poor and disenfranchised a folk hero and awakened dreams of liberation and revolution. "When I made 'The Harder They Come,' we had just come into independence and were finding our voice as a country - as a culture - and defining a whole new society," says writer-director Perry Henzell. "Jamaicans were saying: 'We're a nation now and we have something to say.' "

Cliff's songs, such as "Sitting Here in Limbo" and the film's title track, drove the record to multiplatinum success over the years and earned it the accolade of No. 1 soundtrack of all time in a 1992 ranking by E! Entertainment Television.

Its lasting impact is evinced by the mileage it gets from other performers. UB40 covered "Johnny Too Bad," while Elvis Costello, Joe Cocker, UB40, and Oleta Adams each covered Cliff's introspective "Many Rivers to Cross." The Clash, the late Robert Palmer, The Specials, and Smash Mouth each covered Toots & The Maytals' "Pressure Drop." And Keith Richards growled his own version of the "The Harder They Come."

The underdog story at the heart of the picture also served as a catalyst of positive change for people who saw it.

"I met this one woman in Hawaii years ago," Cliff recalls, "and she said to me: 'Oh, Jimmy Cliff! I was a dropout in school and now I'm a lawyer and I'm a teacher. And it was your music that got me to go back to school. And now I'm teaching my children - my students - with your music.' That's really success for me. It's not that I sold, say, this many records. Real success is meeting people like that."

Barbara Kopple, a two-time Academy Award-winning documentarian and film director, says she was similarly inspired. "When I was making 'Harlan County,' I was broke and my electricity was turned off, so I would have to walk home and take a bath by candlelight," she recalls. "And sometimes when I was feeling really sorry for myself, I used to sing that Jimmy Cliff song 'You Can Get It If You Really Want' with tears coming down my face."

Indeed, the film has inspired generations of filmmakers with its unflinching eye and gritty realism. Echoes of the story would show up in music-themed movies like "The Buddy Holly Story," "Purple Rain," "La Bamba," "8 Mile," and crime narratives such as "Scarface" and "City of God."

Such is the staying power of the film that New Line Cinema, the studio behind the "Lord of the Rings" franchise, has stepped up to produce a hip-hop-flavored remake of "The Harder They Come," directed by Stephen Williams, due out in 2005.

Cliff has no formal role yet in the remake, but he may serve as a consultant, and provide a song or two. But it doesn't disappoint him that rap - rather than reggae - fuels the soundtrack. "Reggae gave birth to hip-hop. We started it," he says. "We called it 'toasting,' and it became a national trend in Jamaica."

African-American and Latino communities picked up that sound from Jamaicans and West Indians in the US.

While much of hip-hop today is about the accoutrements of success, for Cliff it has always been about the music.

For fans of the original film who may not have attended one of Cliff's club performances, seeing him perform live is akin to watching Richard Roundtree's Shaft, Wesley Snipes's Nino Brown, or Pacino's Tony Montana walk off the screen and burst into song. But after 30 years of being greeted as "Ivan," Cliff doesn't object to the connection.

"I don't mind at all," he says with a chuckle. "It's the rebel that I am."

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