Biography of Linton Kwesi Johnson

"I coined the phrase dub poetry because I was trying to argue that what the DJs in Jamaica were actually doing is poetry -- improvised, spontaneous, oral poetry." Johnson's initial recorded work, Dread Beat an' Blood (recorded in the UK in 1978), provided an entirely different way to look at Caribbean rhythms and life, and had a major impact on Jamaican poet/performers like Mutabaruka, Michael Smith, and Oku Onuora. Johnson had emigrated with his family to England in 1963, eventually receiving an honors degree in sociology from the University of London. He joined the British arm of the Black Panthers in 1970, where he began writing poetry and reciting it publicly. His topics were revolutionary in both content and style -- using Jamaican patois to reflect the realities of immigrant life in the ghettos of Britain. Forces of Victory, his second album, was a musical novel about oppression and confrontation, backed by the machine-gun force of Dennis Bovell's Dub Band. The followup Bass Culture expanded Johnson's themes to include meditations on the relationship of art to its audience, and was followed by LKJ in Dub, an instrumental version of his most powerful sessions. Making History, released in the Orwellian year of 1984, broadened his rhythmic horizons and added a pan-Caribbean flavor to his sound. A live album, summing up his career to date, came out the following year, after which Johnson claimed he had retired. But in 1991, he made a well-received return to the scene with Tings and Times, another multi-rhythm outing of indignant rhymes. Taking stage in a porkpie hat and modest demeanor, Johnson's understated performances belie the power of his carefully observed imagery and uncompromising calls for change. He is one of the true internationalizers of the form, a musical Marxist with upheaval on his mind. ~ Roger Steffens