The Father of Dub Poetry Gets A Fine Award
He is just as neat and dapper as in his younger days, but his hair is thin and grey. The slim figure with the quietly dignified air is Jamaican-born dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson (LKJ), receiving the Golden PEN Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement from a tousle-headed English lady. He joins a list of mostly white, mainstream authors – Margaret Drabble, Iris Murdoch, Harold Pinter, Doris Lessing…the only other non-white awardee being Salman Rushdie.
But don’t think that LKJ has compromised his radical roots. The sixty-year-old has never hankered to join the ranks of “respectable” English poets. I have always admired him for his uncompromising stance and biting social commentary, from the perspective of a black man living in the UK. His voice has been unflinching over the years; his perspective unwavering, sharp, intelligent.
Linton Kwesi Johnson… Still a revolutionary soul.
Mr. Johnson has his own record label, LKJ Records, which includes the marvelous Dennis Bovell – a great dub producer and musician, whose sound system caused some problems when it first echoed out across the streets of London.“ The LKJ album “Bass Culture“ is one of my favorite LKJ/Bovell collaborations.
Dennis Bovell, back in the day.
I have this one in my possession… “Bass Culture.”
Another poet under LKJ’s wing is Jean Binta Breeze, whom I remember seeing in concert a few times; she is a great educator as well as writer and performer, who studied at Kingston’s Jamaica School of Drama and migrated to the UK in the 1980s.
Who is Linton Kwesi Johnson? He was born in 1952 in Chapelton, Clarendon. He came to Britain in 1963, went to Tulse Hill Secondary School and studied Sociology at Goldsmith’s College, University of London. He joined the Black Panther movement while still at school. In 1974 he joined the Race Today Collective in Brixton, south London, which published his first collection of poems in 1974. His second book of poetry, “Dread Beat an’ Blood,” is a classic and was made into his first album three years later (Johnson starts with the poetry…the music comes later).
The original six Black Panthers in Oakland, California in 1966. A huge influence on LKJ.
Dread Beat an’ Blood
He recorded several albums on Chris Blackwell’s Island record label in the 1970s, before setting up LKJ Records in 1981. With a C. Day Lewis Fellowship, he became Writer in Residence for the London Borough of Lambeth. “Inglan is a Bitch” (I can hear the words and music in my head) came out in 1980. And the following year was the Brixton riots. He worked primarily as a journalist in the 1980s (including as a reporter on Channel Four Television). Tings An’ Times: Selected Poems appeared in 1991 as both a book and musical recording. He was made Associate Fellow at Warwick University in 1985 and Honorary Fellow at Wolverhampton Polytechnic in 1987. A selection of his poetry, entitled “Mi Revalueshanary Fren’”, was published in 2002 as a Penguin Modern Classic edition with an introduction by Fred D’Aguilar; Johnson became only the second living poet, and the first black poet, to be included in the series. In 2005 he was awarded a Musgrave medal by the Institute of Jamaica, for eminence in the field of poetry.
Linton Kwesi Johnson’s “Mi Revalueshanary Fren’” was published as a Penguin Modern Classic.
I remember the Brixton riots; I was living in north London at the time. A young black man was stabbed in Brixton, which is still home to many Afro-Caribbean descent (it has been a bit “gentrified” in recent years, I understand). Rumors flew that the police had arrested him instead of taking him to hospital. Bitterness grew, and exploded. Unemployment was high in the area, and the police “stop and search” (or the “suss” law, as it was called – that is, no basis for the police action but hearsay) had already created an atmosphere of resentment. The spark was lit. The main battleground was Railton Road (or the “Front Line” as it was called) – a place of entertainment where drug dealers and “shebeens” (unlicensed bars)ruled and the black population of Brixton generally hung out. Hundreds of police and members of the public were injured – no deaths – and hundreds of cars and buildings destroyed. London was in shock.
Railton Road, Brixton in 2003… Looking in better shape.
A scene from the Brixton riots of 1981. (Photo: UK Guardian)
LKJ feels that, since the Brixton riots of 1981, things have improved in some ways for black people in Britain; although there were several periods of unrest in the area subsequently, and again last year. But 1981 was a watershed. Black voices like Mr. Johnson’s could no longer be ignored. However, at least 55 per cent of blacks are now unemployed. LKJ does not feel sanguine that racial equality is still on the agenda of British politicians of whatever stripe. He does not believe that the handful of black Members of Parliament are willing to take up the cause, either. And there are still huge problems in education, with black children continuing to underperform. LKJ asserts that the British police remain “pathologically racist.” And of course, the British class system continues its iron grip on society.
What does LKJ think about the furious riots in London in the summer of 2011, after the death of a young black man at the hands of the police? He believes they were “just waiting to happen; they could happen again at any time.”
The Brixton riots…destructive, but perhaps cathartic.
In his five-minute acceptance speech for the Golden PEN, LKJ notes that he is a part of a “little tradition of Caribbean verse” established in the 1960s by Kamau Brathwaite, Andrew Salkey – an “alternate” and “independent” aesthetic that led him to describe the black experience in Britain. After acknowledging “the power of reggae music,” through which his work became widely known, LKJ launches into a poem, naturally flowing from his speech. You can watch his presentation here: http://lockerz.com/u/petchary/decalz/22276287/linton_kwesi_johnson_presented_with_gold?ref=petchary
LKJ still lives in Brixton.
P.S. Another favorite of mine is “Sonny’s Lettah,” written by a young Jamaican in prison to his mother. A classic (and I have this one too in original vinyl…)
Sonny’s Lettah – not sure if you can read this, you might have to magnify it somehow.
Sonny’s Lettah – cover
Related articles and websites
http://www.lintonkwesijohnson.com (Linton Kwesi Johnson home page)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/linton-kwesi-johnson-classridden-yes-but-this-is-still-home-8373870.html (“Class-ridden? Yes, but this is still home” Independent.co.uk)
http://www.lintonkwesijohnson.com/2012/04/18/riots-rhymes-and-reason/ (Riots, Rhymes and Reasons: Linton Kwesi Johnson blog post)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/dec/17/brixton-riots-exhibition (Remembering the riots: guardian.co.uk)
http://www.infowars.com/anarchy-in-brixton-riots-and-violence-break-out-in-the-uk/ (Anarchy in Brixton: Riots and Violence Break out in the UK – 2011)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/09/tottenham-2011-brixton-1981 (Tottenham 2011 and Brixton 1981 – different ideals, similar lessons: guardian.co.uk)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/may/04/poetry.books (Poet on the front line: guardian.co.uk)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/nov/18/stop-search-police-may-drops (Theresa May drops plans for stop-and-search law targeting ethnic minorities: guardian.co.uk, 2010)
http://www.lintonkwesijohnson.com/lkj-records-artists/dennis-bovell/ (Dennis Bovell bio: LKJ Records)
http://www.lintonkwesijohnson.com/lkj-records-artists/jean-binta-breeze/ (Jean Binta Breeze bio: LKJ Records)
Real Revolutionaries
Yes, the Petchary has been slowed down by work and other writing pursuits. This one, though, is a tribute to two men whose urgent voices have been quietened. For now. But they have been, and will continue to be, inspiring.
Gil Scott-Heron loved the word “revolution.” After all, he emerged during the heady days of the late 1960s, when the concept had “gone viral” without the aid of computers. Even white middle-class hippies loved revolution, and even if not many of them really understood what it meant; but then Gil always seemed to me to have something of the hippy sensibility, and that is nothing to be ashamed of either.
Cool and funky Gil
His father was a Jamaican footballer, and the first black player for Celtic Football Club; but Gil met him for the first time when he was twenty-six, and – like many Jamaicans in fact – was brought up by his grandmother until age twelve, when he moved to live with his mother in the Bronx. And by a strange coincidence, Gil and his Midnight Band were picked to replace Bob Marley, who was due to perform with Stevie Wonder in Montreal, in 1980. Marley was too sick by then.
Gil was not just a musician (he started up in a high school band named after a local gang, the Warlords. He used to play “Go Now” unendingly. One of my favorites, too). He was also one of the first spoken word poets (earning him the nickname “the Godfather of rap” which I believe he wasn’t very comfortable with). He loved jazz and the blues and began to meld poetry into his song-writing and his music. He dropped out of college (Lincoln University, where one of his heroes, Langston Hughes, studied) and at age nineteen wrote his first novel, “Vulture,” published in 1970.
Gil loved hats. The Jamaican in him.
Gil was a powerful, surging spirit. One felt he had been back down this way many times before, as the song of the times, “Deja Vu,” suggests. He was loved by the “lefties,” the hippies, the Black Panthers, the rebellious young, for his fearless searching for truth and the real truth. He disliked the commercial side of music and phoneys. He loved friends and laughter (he was not one of those depressingly grim revolutionaries with no sense of humor)… and, sadly, he loved crack cocaine (and alcohol). He was jailed a couple of times, arrested several times.
His last album, “I’m New Here,” was released last year and it was his first album in sixteen years. The song “New York Is Killing Me” was sadly true. Gil never kicked his crack habit, but he kept on fighting to the end, at age 62. Take a listen to the album. It is uncomfortable but true to form, as honest as Gil always was.
And Gil loved to laugh. The human in him.
“Johannesburg” was one of my favorite songs of Gil’s, written of course in the apartheid era and a couple of years before Soweto… “I’m glad to hear the resistance is growing,” he sang in his upbeat, jazzy, irresistibly funky style. I’m going to post it on this page.
And the other revolutionary? Well, he didn’t do so much writing, singing and rapping. But…yes. He was one, and he was wronged, and he overcame that wrong in a very positive way.
Geronimo Pratt (his first name was actually Elmer) was a Black Panther. He died at age 63, same generation as Gil, at his home in Tanzania (where another former Panther, Pete O’Neal, still lives in exile). But it was a long journey out to Africa for Mr. Pratt, indeed.
Of course, the Black Panthers were the FBI‘s worst nightmare during that same period when Gil was writing his revolutionary songs and poems back east. Pratt was born into a large family near New Orleans. Growing up in the segregated South helped shape his political views. He served in Vietnam and was recruited to the Black Panthers while studying at the University of Los Angeles (where the man who recruited him, Alprentic “Bunchy” Carter, was killed in a campus shootout in 1969) . I think the nickname “Geronimo” suited Pratt… as we say in the 21st century, he had “strong leadership qualities.” He became the Panthers’ Minister of Defense.
Geronimo back in the day
In 1971 his wife was murdered when she was eight months pregnant, apparently because of a split in the Party. Those were not just heady times; they were dangerous.
Life got very much tougher for Geronimo. He was, inevitably, constantly under surveillance by the FBI. While he was in Oakland being wire-tapped, hundreds of miles away, a school teacher was murdered on a tennis court in Santa Monica in 1968. Her husband, who was injured, initially identified someone else as the killer; but an FBI informant – a Black Panther, but by no means a friend – said it was Pratt. All kinds of underhand tactics, as it turned out years later, were used to convict him. But convicted he was, and he served 27 years, despite the best efforts of his diligent attorney, Johnny Cochran Jr. He served the first eight years in solitary confinement.
Geronimo and Johnny Cochran meet the press after his vindication
Pratt always maintained his innocence, and in 1997 he was absolved of the murder and received a $4.5 million settlement.
His African neighbor, Pete O’Neal, said Pratt was his hero, and always someone who fought for social justice. Perhaps unlike Gil Scott-Heron (and rather like Nelson Mandela) he learnt patience and forbearance during his long incarceration. But he lost none of his fighting spirit and continued his work after his release.
Another note for rap fans: Pratt was Tupac Shakur’s godfather.
A familiar pose.
A footnote from the Petchary: I was a young woman in the late sixties and early seventies, and of course at the “easily influenced” age. Revolution and rebellion seemed so exciting at the time – just as it does now to young Arabs in several countries fighting for their freedom.
I admire them. And their youth gives me a sharp little pain. Because revolution was not glamorous then, and it never will be. Its protagonists are not superheroes; they are ordinary human beings with their own weaknesses. Che Guevara ordered the killing of many people, and he didn’t even look much like that pretty poster. And those were dangerous times, as they are now. People died, pointlessly. There was in-fighting and jealousy. There was dirty politics, and mud, and guns.
But they tried. They really, really tried. And the cause of justice and freedom is still there to be fought.
A few articles of interest:
Growing up with Gil Scott-Heron: In Loving Memory
Revolutionary rapper (bbc.co.uk)
Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt dies at 63 (LA Times)
