African History Series: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Black Experience in Britain

Jamaica poet and artist, Linton Kwesi Johnson is the second living poet, and the only black one, to have his poems published in the Penguin Modern Classics Series in 2002.

Born in Chapelton, a rural parish of Clarendon in Jamaica, Linton Kwesi Johnson migrated to Britain in 1963 with his parents as part of the Windrush generation that left Jamaica on the eve of independence. Johnson attended Tulse Hill School in Lambeth, where he joined the British Black Panther Movement, helping to organize poetry workshops within the movement, while developing his work with Rasta Love, a group of poets and drummers.

Johnson studied sociology at Goldsmiths College in New Cross, London, graduating in 1973. He wrote for New Musical Express, Melody Maker, and Black Music in the 1970s, while working 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 and produced by Jamaican novelist Lindsay Barrett.

Johnson's poetry involves the recitation of his own verse in Jamaican patois, mixing it with dub-reggae, usually written in collaboration with reggae producer Dennis Bovell.

In this episode, we present a poetry performance by Linton Kwesi Johnson at the Leeds West Indian Centre held to commemorate 50 years since the death of David Oluwale.

This episode is part of the African History Series of the Africanist Press featuring voices, individuals, and institutions engaged in shaping the study of Africa's past and present developments.