An unusually passionate lament, ["Many Rivers to Cross"] brings into focus what you could see as Cliff's artistic problem: on record, he sounds so perky it's easy to overlook the agony of his lyrics. (p. 24)

The tension between rejection and Cliff's inherent optimism is the core of Cliff's music, its successes as well as its weaknesses. His adherence to Islam—though he now says simply, "My religion is God"—hasn't made his music any more overtly militant, though, perhaps because he's too intelligent to see the world as anything but a mass of contradictions, and that's why his bitter observations always sound so sweet….

He is an immensely gifted, if flawed, musician; you are always aware of the potential for an explosion of talent from Jimmy Cliff. (p. 43)