Michael Smith

Although Linton Kwesi Johnson invented dub poetry and remains the most influential of its practitioners, Michael Smith was another incredibly talented, politically ferocious dub poet who, tragically, lived long enough to release only one record. Born in a rough section of Kingston, Smith grew up in a reggae culture immersed in the toasting riddims of I-Roy and U-Roy, the heavy dub that Lee Perry and King Tubby were churning out, and the political stance of Bob Marley. Smith, who began his career (much like Johnson) as a poet, raged against a Jamaican political machine (be it l...