oppressed black masses estrangement.
phase of capitalism reality. His 1980s.
inere are ine millais music: rhythm, heat of the dance clarity of Jamaican patois.
feeling constrained by There is an anti-sus poem.
killed a upon his brother.
Intavenshan' people to 'ride the storm'.
He says:
people in politics.
them.
violence of tne _ the titte track finally engulfed Bob Marley.
label. LINTON Kwesi Johnson is the bard of the • in Britain. He has re-constituted reggae with a particularity which is angled essentially at the harsh political facts of Britain today: Thatcher's Britain. A Britain whose ruling class is increasingly alarmed by its ailing capitalism and greater and greater class The agents of repression have turned with violence upon black people. We are at once seen as a major cultural threat (eg reggae, carnival) and also as a necessary sub-proletariat essential for the continuation of this last most grotesque Johnson declaims to his people this vicious reggae purged back-to-lithiopia idealism and he has made his lyric focus sharply upon this Britain of the The image on the cover of his latest record Forces of Victory, is an old-fashioned radio microphone. but instead of the initials 'BBC 'LKJ' - Radio LKJ making its intervention into mass commercial culture - saying the things that aunty BBC in the name of balance will not mention.
On this album are eight poems that are set to melody, and words are an integral part of the whole musical design. In the floor, even, Johnson's intimately modulated voice is right up close to ear with an unmistakable clarity • the The first song is about wanting to rave poverty and having to report to the police station at 6pm every day.
The most dramalic piece is in the form of a letter from a youth in Brixton prison to his mother in Jamaica; he tells her of how he became invoived in a fight and policeman after they arbitrarily set For white readers of Socialist Challenge, or indeed any politicised white person, pointed criticism will be found in 'Independen! CRC, TUC, CP. IMG, SWP, Labour Party all by name; he castigates them for their history of opportunism and patronage towards blach •What a cheek, them think we meek and can't speak up fe weself". This is the legitimate and general position of most black Legitimate because until these organisations prove in practice to be non-opportunist we cannot put any trust in But to say 'ride the storm' does not answer what active response we should make to them The album closes with a call to meet the the violence self-defence (no wonder the BBC postponed the film about Johnson until after the election). and he ends a million miles from pessimism or idealism on an up-note with 'Forces of Victory The Hampslead Liberals will not be able to listen to this as easily as they gulped down the romanticism-for-the-scars-of-colonialism that • Forces of Victory is issued on The Island