Linton Kwesi Johnson is a voice for the voiceless, a modern day scribe who uncompromisingly levels the powerful with the fire and brimstone of his vertebrae-straightening poetry set to wicked bass drum-driven music. It was in the mid-eighties whilst browsing through records in a music store that I ran across a simple yet powerfully symbolic album cover entitled "Bass Culture" by Linton Kwesi Johnson. Equally intriguing were the song titles at the back of the album ("Inglan Is A Bitch", "Two Sides Of Silence", "Di Black Petty Booshwah", "Bass Culture" ). I was richly rewarded when I listened to it and have been a fan ever since. However,it was in 1991, after listening to his seventh album,"Tings An' Times", when I realized the profundity of LKJ's verse as this was the time when Rodney King was savagely beaten by the LAPD. "Tings An' Times" became (for me) the soundtrack of that highly-charged, despair-ridden and racially-divisive time as the searing contradictions that bubble beneath the patchwork fabric of this nation rose to the surface and exposed the open,unhealed wounds in full view of the international community.
Like Mutabaruka & Prince Far I, Linton Kwesi Johnson makes visible what has purposely been buried (i.e the shining diamonds of truth). That most people walk around sleep-walking/dazed'n'confused/uprooted/compromised & contained, is one of the tragedies of our times. Yeah mon! A good dose of LKJ can help heal the stupor of our times. As he so eloquently put it in "Two Sides Of Silence":
inside our ears
are the many wailing cries
of Mystery
inside our bodies
the internal bleeding
of volcanoes
inside our heads
the wrapped-in thoughts
of rebellion
how can there be calm
when the storm is yet to come?
Check out some of my favorites...
The Best of Linton Kwesi Johnson by EddieRockers
..& some interesting LKJ interviews:
Music Playlist at MixPod.com
OneLove
::MixMasterE::
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