Cliff’s Edge Mellowed by Time : Reggae: The veteran singer performs tonight in the World Beat Tour ’92 stop at the Pacific Amphitheatre on a bill with Burning Spear, Majek Fashek and others.

Jimmy Cliff was already a star in Europe and South America by the late ‘60s, but it was in his starring role in the now cult-classic film “The Harder They Come” in 1972 that introduced him to U.S. audiences. Cliff had been making records in Jamaica since 1962, and the film’s tale of a young singer exploited and embittered by the island’s corrupt music industry had many parallels to his own life.

In the film, Cliff’s character, Ivan, winds up as a furious, gun-toting, knife-slashing rebel who dies in a shootout with the police. Outside of Ivan’s use of weapons, Cliff said he felt much the same way at the time.

“Yeah--the angry young man,” the reggae singer reflected by phone from the Bay Area earlier this week. “Lashing out to say ‘the harder they come, the harder they fall,’ was almost the same statement that Ice-T is making when he speaks about cop killing. I was feeling that same kind of anger there.

“I’m still angry about a lot of things. There is a song, ‘Peace,’ on my new album (‘Breakout’ on the indie JRS Records label) where I’m saying, ‘How is there going to be peace when there is no justice?’ Because even though I might find peace in myself, I’m still not happy, still not at ease as I would like to be, when I see people in the same exploited conditions, the injustice of others not sharing the wealth of the earth. I think I will always be angry as long as that exists. But instead of lashing out now, I ask a question and then try to give a solution from what I’ve learned, to say, ‘Look, there is a way outside of the anger.’ ”

Cliff performs tonight in the World Beat Tour ’92 stop at the Pacific Amphitheatre on a bill with Burning Spear, Majek Fashek and others (Nigerian Juju star King Sunny Ade and reggae group Toots & the Maytals have canceled). Along with singing his older reggae hits, Cliff will be doing songs from his new album, as well as ones he hasn’t recorded yet. He says the album title “Breakout” reflects the way he’s feeling about life these days.

With a career spanning more than 30 years--much of that filled with rip-offs and stardom’s typically queasy roller-coaster ride--Cliff shows no signs of the burnout that afflicts many less-battered rock vets. Rather, his lyrics--while dealing with war and social inequities that often see starvation as an end product--have grown increasingly optimistic in recent years, supported by music that still reaches for new things. The current album finds him freely mixing three decades of reggae rhythms with Brazilian and African music styles.

“I don’t know what brings other creative people their greatest happiness, but for me it has always been creating ,” he said. “I also think some artists may not go as forward with their music because they have achieved their goals, so they don’t have the urge anymore. I don’t feel that I have accomplished what I wanted to do. So the yearning is still there.”

The disc holds a remake of his early-’70s anthem of expectant redemption, “Sitting in Limbo,” with new lyrics representative of its new title, “Stepping Out of Limbo.”

“The concept of ‘Breakout’ actually means transformation to me, and it’s what I’m going through, spiritually and artistically,” Cliff said. “That song is very significant to me in a period like this because when I first wrote it I was sitting in limbo--I couldn’t see the light at that time, though the determination was there not to give in. Now I have to say I see the light and I’m stepping out of limbo.”

His optimism, he said, “is growing, you know, evolving spiritually. By doing this I realize that the positive force of life is actually more powerful and more healthy for myself, for a human being, than the negative force. I have both forces in me, which we all do, but I’m choosing to exercise the positive force. And I’m trying to transfer some of this positive force through the music to other people.”

He has indications it’s getting across. He said a Hawaiian fan recently approached him to say she’d been a dropout until his music moved her to get a degree and work with children. On a grander scale, Cliff can cite the time Nelson Mandela spoke at Jamaica’s national stadium in Kingston.

“He spoke about me and about Bob Marley and what our music had done for him in his many years in prison, what it has done for the struggle. And I’ve met many South Africans and Ghanians who have gone through many struggles and say that, ‘It’s your music that has helped us,’ ” Cliff said.

He has always had a special bond with Africa, a feeling he discovered to be mutual when he first toured there in 1974.

“When I went to Nigeria that first time it was one of the most memorable and amazing times in my life, for the fact that I didn’t know I was that popular in Africa. When I landed at the airport there were thousands of people there, and more lining the streets going to the hotel. I was amazed. I’d never had that adoration and acceptance. Even today Africa is still my biggest market.

“I think it’s my sentiment that connects us. I’ve always felt very close to Africa as a child growing up, knowing that it’s the country of my ancestors. And I’d always wanted to go there. So somewhere in my psyche, deep in my heart, I am expressing something that touches them. That’s the only way I can explain that, because whether they are Francophone or Anglophone, when I do concerts they sing along with all the songs, some that I would never have played anywhere else.”

Cliff would like to find that level of popularity in the United States.

“I’m known in every part of the planet, but not to the degree that I would like it in the so-called developed world. I have good fans in America, enough that I could tour here for the rest of my life, and I get younger fans all the time. But I want the acceptance here that comes with a real big commercial success.

“I’m popular in the so-called Third-World countries, but in the so-called developed world there has to be a concentration, like a politician’s campaign, to break an artist. You have to take the necessary steps, follow the trends, get the commercial plays on the radio, the media. Whereas in the Third-World countries, if they just hear a good record or good song, they play it. I think of all people when I make my music, and I want all people to be able to hear it.”

In the mid-’70s, Cliff converted to Islam. Though he says he still practices and finds truth in Muslim prayer, that wasn’t the end of his searching.

“Along with the Muslim religion, I have studied all the (other) religions too, Buddhism, Rastafarianism and others,” he said. “I grew up as a Christian. All of these are knowledge and in all of them there is some truth. But I feel now there is no one body that has a monopoly on truth. What I would say my religion now in my life is the respect for truth and life. These things are sacred.”

“World Beat ‘92,” with Jimmy Cliff, Burning Spear, Majek Fashek, Anzell Collins, Luzzo and Cross Culture, begins at 4 p.m. at the Pacific Amphitheatre, 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa. $17.60 to $25.30. (714) 740-2000 (Ticketmaster).