Musical icon Jimmy Cliff will be accorded an official funeral by the Jamaican Government.

Entertainment Minister Olivia Grange made the announcement Tuesday as the House of Representatives paid glowing tribute to one of Jamaica’s most influential ambassadors who died on Monday.

Christened James Chambers at birth, Cliff was 81 years old at the time of his passing. He reportedly died after a battle with pneumonia after suffering a seizure.

Grange also revealed that the Grammy-winning Cliff has left “specific instructions about how he wants Jamaica to say farewell to him”. She said those instructions will be made public.

Entertainment Minister Olivia Grange speaks in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, November 25, 2025. (Photo: Karl McLarty)

In her tribute, Grange described Cliff as “one of the greatest proponents of Jamaican music” and “one of Jamaica’s greatest sons”. The tributes were led by Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness who also stated that Jamaica has lost one of her greatest sons.

Also paying tribute were Opposition Leader Mark Golding; Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett; and Minister of Local Government and Community Development Desmond McKenzie, who had known Cliff from the time he lived on Spanish Town Road in West Kingston after he relocated from Somerton, St James as a young man; Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Alando Terrelonge; Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, Dr Kenneth Russell; and Opposition Spokesperson on Culture, Nekeisha Burchell, who is also MP for St James Southern.

A relatively short list of persons in Jamaica is accorded an official funeral which is a decision of the Cabinet. It is usually accorded to members of the Cabinet, the president of the Senate, the speaker of the House of Representatives, members of the Senate and members of the House of Representatives.

An official funeral is also accorded to widows and widowers of national heroes and such other people as may be determined by the Cabinet.

Meanwhile, the House also paid tribute to former Member of Parliament, Melford Brown and Jamaica’s Consul General to New York, Alsion Roach Wilson.

Brown won both St Elizabeth South Western and North Western constituencies for the People’s National Party in the 1970s and early 1990s. He died on October 22.

Roach Wilson died at her home in New York earlier this month.

-Lynford Simpson