321: Making History, by Linton Kwesi Johnson

Linton Kwesi Johnson (Jamaica/United Kingdom)
Making History (1983)
7 tracks, 33 minutes
YouTube

Linton Kwesi Johnson really is the quintessential dub poet. His poetry is hard-hitting, intelligent and cool. His work offers an unabashed and uncompromising view of life in Britain as a black man, and specifically as a Caribbean immigrant, told with the exact amount of smouldering anger it deserves yet with a crystal clear gaze and a healthy wit to it too.

The ‘dub’ of Johnson’s poetry comes from within rather than without. When he speaks his poetry, there is a music to it. The lilt of it, the rhythms and cadences inherent in the words he writes and the melody provided by his still-Jamaican accent make it dub, unmistakably, even when he performs alone. It also means that when he performs – as he often does – alongside dub music, the fit is completely natural and mutually enriching for both artforms.

When performing with music, Johnson’s partner and collaborator is, more often than not, legendary UK-Barbadian producer, guitarist and bassist Dennis Bovell, also known as Blackbeard, and it’s Bovell and his band that shore up Johnson’s spoken poetry on Making History. Bovell’s usual medium is, as you’d expect, dub, but on this album they do something a bit different. Dub definitely permeates the lot – with Linton Kwesi Johnson, it can’t not – but they also experiment in letting the poetry float among other styles. ‘Wat Abou Di Working Class’ is a slinky jazz-blues with some really hot solos, ‘Di Great Insohreckshan’ is a very 1983-sounding synth pop and ‘Raggae fi Radni’ is ever-so-slightly Latin. It’s interesting to hear the dubwise style of production, performance and poetry turn all of these types of music into the perfect backdrop for Johnson’s truth, his words moulding the music into the appropriate sound, rather than the other way around.

It’s also very pleasing that Bovell isn’t precious about the position of music within the sonic space. At times, when it’s appropriate, the music drops out entirely, allowing Johnson to speak directly to the audience on his own, without backing. These bits actually make the music more effective, as its presence on the album never feels like clutter – the whole thing is neat and tidy, the backing playing its role when it benefits the poetry, and letting the words stand on their own when they need to.

All of Linton Kwesi Johnson’s work is essential in the way he tells the stories of the black British experience with beauty, clarity and thought. Making History is a high-point in his musical output, however, for the almost telepathic connection between poet and producer in crafting the perfect settings for the verse, whether that is a dense musical arrangement or stark silence. Those settings give us the optimal opportunity to learn from Johnson’s thoughts and teachings – which are sadly often as relevant today as they were more than 35 years ago.