Jimmy Cliff Takes Back His Crown

When Rancid's Tim Armstrong first hit the studio with Jimmy Cliff to produce the reggae legend's new record in May, the two had never even met. "I had no idea how it was going to work out," Armstrong says. During their first session, he picked up an acoustic guitar and started jamming on the Clash's "The Guns of Brixton." Cliff watched for a while, then headed over to an old Jamaican hand drum and started playing along. "For 12 minutes, he was locked into this serious rhythm," Armstrong says. "It was like magic."

The Clash cover appears on Cliff's new EP, due in November (a full album is coming next year). Since getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year, Cliff has set about reclaiming his legacy as reggae's greatest living artist. "People in the Hall of Fame tend to clap their hands and say, 'OK, I've done it all,'" says Cliff, 63. "But for me, it was a new beginning." Cliff returned to a batch of songs he had begun writing in 2009, when he skipped his annual European tour and traveled to Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Ghana. "Africa is like an injection for me," says Cliff. "Being there gave me that high feeling – the songs just poured out." Last summer, he road-tested the new material on a rare U.S. run that included a triumphant stop at Bonnaroo.

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