RhoDeo 1249 Roots

Hello, as mentioned previously there's been a big influx of Jamaicans in the UK these last decades and they seeded a vibrant reggae/dub culture, reason enough to post some of the results here..  part 2 of the dub poet   N'joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Linton Kwesi Johnson (aka LKJ) is a British based dub poet.  Johnson attended Goldsmiths College in New Cross, London, which currently holds his personal papers in its archives; in 2004 he became an Honorary Visiting Professor of Middlesex University in London. In 2005 he was awarded a silver Musgrave medal from the Institute of Jamaica for distinguished eminence in the field of poetry. Most of Johnson's poetry is political, dealing mainly with the experiences of being an African-Caribbean in Britain. However, he has also shown himself more than capable of writing about other issues, such as British foreign policy or the death of anti-racist marcher Blair Peach. His most celebrated poems were written during the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The poems contain graphic accounts of the alleged regular racist police brutality

Linton Kwesi Johnson (aka LKJ) (born in Jamaica, 24 August 1952) is a UK-based dub poet. In 2002 he became the second living poet, and the only black poet, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series (Mi Revalueshanary Fren). Johnson was born in Chapelton, a small town in the rural parish of Clarendon, Jamaica. In 1963 he came to live in Brixton, London, joining his mother who had emigrated to Britain shortly before Jamaican independence in 1962. Johnson attended Tulse Hill secondary school in Lambeth. While still at school he joined the British Black Panther Movement, helped to organise a poetry workshop within the movement, and developed his work with Rasta Love, a group of poets and drummers. During the early to mid-1970s he was employed as the first paid library resources and education officer at the Keskidee Centre, where his poem Voices of the living and the dead was staged (73), produced by Jamaica novelist Lindsay Barrett, with music by the reggae group Rasta Love.

Although he has only released one album of new material in the last ten years, and virtually retired from the live stage, Linton Kwesi Johnson remains a towering figure in reggae music. Johnson's grim realism and tales of racism in an England governed by Tories was scathingly critical. The Afro-Brits in Johnson's poems are neglected by the government and persecuted by the police. Johnson was also instrumental (with his friend Darcus Howe) in the publication of a socialist-oriented London-based newspaper, Race Today. For one so outspoken in his politics, Johnson's recorded work, while politically explicit, is not simply a series of slogans or tuneful/danceable jeremiads. In fact, is was his second release, Forces of Victory, where his mix of politics and music united to stunning effect. Dennis Bovell and the Dub Band could swing (as in jazzy) more than many reggae bands, and guitarist John Kpiaye, the group's secret weapon, offered deftly played, dazzlingly melodic solos. But it was Johnson's moving poetry, galvanizing moments such as "Sonny's Lettah" and "Fite Dem Back" that made it obvious that this was a major talent.

Although he never intended to, Johnson became a star, in England anyway; in America he had a small yet devoted group of fans. But political activism was as important, perhaps more important, than churning out records and touring, and after the release of his third album, Bass Culture, in 1980, Johnson took time off from the music scene, turning his back on a lucrative contract from Island. He continued to perform, but it was poetry readings at universities, at festivals in the Caribbean, and for trade union workers in Trinidad. In 1982, the BBC commissioned Johnson to create a series of radio programs on Jamaican popular music, a subject he'd been researching for years. The programs, entitled From Mento to Lovers Rock, were more than just musical history; Johnson contextualized Jamaican music socially and politically and offered a more nuanced and thorough examination of the popular music of his native and adopted countries.

Johnson returned to the pop music scene in 1984 with perhaps his best record, Making History. Again working with Dennis Bovell, Johnson's seething political anger suffuses this recording, but it is never undone by simple vituperation. Johnson is, if anything, a thoughtful radical, more analytical than simplistic, and that adds to the power of these seven songs. Unfortunately, this would be the last new music from Johnson until 1991's Tings an' Times, which proved yet again that regardless of how much time he takes off from music, when LKJ returns, it's as if he's never missed a beat. His most recent period of recording silence has been broken by the release of a music-less poetry album. He divorced in 94 (2 sons , 1 daughter) . His 1998 album was entitled More Time, and in 2002 Johnson faces his 50th birthday this August with ambivalence. "I feel good within myself to know I've lived this long. When you're involved in revolutionary struggle, you're wondering if you're going to die in a police cell. I never thought I'd live to the age I have now, but you become more aware of your own mortality. 2003 saw the release of Live In Paris...

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Though "dub poets" like Johnson, Mutabaruka and Sister Carol do parallel dubwise and dancehall artists in some areas (such as their heavy use of the patois dialect), the style has a personality all its own. Although it falls short of the excellence of some of the albums he recorded in the 1980s, Tings An' Times is heartfelt and satisfying. Never one to cater to pop sensibilities, Johnson is uncompromising and angrily socio-political. Uniting African-style singing and chanting with elements of rock, jazz, and soul, this album is a fascinating listen that will remind westerners of the progressive American music of the '60s and early '70s. But his outlook is intensely African, and his socio-political lyrics (some in English, some in an African language) are a passionate call for democracy in Africa, where repressive Nigerian regimes regularly attacked him. This is music that, for all its spontaneity, has a definite sense of purpose.

Linton Kwesi Johnson ‎– Tings An' Times (flac  231mb)

01 Story 5:20
02 Sense Outta Nansense 4:59
03 Tings An' Times 6:32
04 Mi Revalueshanary Fren 5:19
05 Di Good Life 5:30
06 Di Anfinished Revolueshan 5:33
07 Dubbing For Life 4:03

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Purists point out that Johnson's lyrics is something of a put-on -- he writes songs (or poems, as he prefers) with titles like "If I Waz a Tap Natch Poet" and "New Word Hawdah," but he can turn it on and off at will and has written in standard English for scholarly journals. But despite his tweedy, bespectacled image, his politics are anything but objective or disengaged -- he writes about social injustice in general and racism in particular with a quiettly seething sense of outrage and an incisive wit. His latest effort finds him exploring familiar territory -- racist violence ("Reggae fi Bernard"), police oppression ("Liesense fi Kill" -- "liesense," get it?) -- but also getting a bit more introspective as he ponders poetry itself ("If I Waz a Tap Natch Poet") and domestic bliss ("Seasons of the Heart"). As always, the music is provided by Dennis Bovell's top-notch Dub Band, whose springy, sometimes swinging groove provides an interesting counterbalance to Johnson's often dour poetic insights.

Linton Kwesi Johnson - More Time (flac  355mb)

01 More Time 5:55
02 Reggae Fi Bernard 6:27
03 Hurricane Blues 5:54
04 Liesense Fi Kill 6:48
05 If I Waz A Top Natch Poet 5:39
06 Reggae Fi May Ayim 6:24
07 Poems Of Shape And Motion 6:24
08 Seasons Of The Heart 6:24
09 New Word Hawdah 6:01

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Only his second live album in 25 years, Live in Paris finds Linton Kwesi Johnson with his longtime backing group, the Dennis Bovell Dub Band. Johnson's pioneering dub poetry style, part reggae prophet and part political revolutionary, took the toasting DJ form and reggae as a whole into a completely new direction. Live in Paris exudes the same sober confidence as his debut, Dread Beat an' Blood. Bovell and LKJ are longtime collaborators, and the Dub Band provide a perfect rootsy backing, brighter than the sometimes grim, subterranean sound of LKJ's studio discs but still devastating, as they react to and anticipate the poet's highly dramatic delivery, highlighted by the double keyboards of Nick Straker and Fabio Marchiori and the violin of Johnny T. Live in Paris rolls through the fiery polemics of "Liesense Fi Kill," "Dread Beat an' Blood," and "Tings an' Times" with occasional stately explanation from the man himself further blurring the line between reggae concert and book reading.

Linton Kwesi Johnson ‎- Live In Paris (flac 380mb)

01 Intro / Di Eagle An Di Bear 2:57
02 Want Fi Goh Rave 3:31
03 Sonny's Lettah 4:25
04 Dread Beat An Blood 4:42
05 Fite Dem Back 3:49
06 Reggae Fi Peach 3:16
07 Reggae Fi Radni 3:14
08 Di Great Insohreckshan 1:52
09 Mekkin Histri 3:28
10 Tings An Times 6:57
11 Liesense Fi Kill 7:25
12 More Time 6:10
13 Reggae Fi Bernard 7:04

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx