Linton Kwesi Johnson to give public lecture on reggae
DISTINGUISHED poet, performer and political activist, Linton Kwesi Johnson (LKJ), will give an illustrated lecture on African Consciousness in Reggae Music on Sunday, January 3 at 6:00 pm at Villa Ronai, Old Stony Hill Road.
Born in Jamaica, LKJ migrated to the UK when he was eleven years old. As a teenager, he joined the British Black Panther Movement which decidedly shaped his political consciousness. He found his voice as a poet and performed with Rasta Love, a group of upful poets and drummers. In a 2008 interview, LKJ emphatically declared that “writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon”.
Johnson’s poems were first published in the journal, Race Today, which also released his first collection of poetry, Voices of the Living and the Dead, in 1974. LKJ has the distinction of being one of only three living poets to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics. That collection is entitled Mi Revalueshanary Fren.
LKJ has more than 20 albums to his credit including Poet And the Roots (Virgin, 1978) and the three-volume LKJ in Dub on the Island label.
Johnson attended Goldsmiths College in London where his personal papers are now archived. In 2004 he became an Honorary Visiting Professor at Middlesex University. In 2005 he was awarded a silver Musgrave medal from the Institute of Jamaica for “distinguished eminence” in the field of poetry.
LKJ’s lecture marks the launch of the Global Reggae Studies Centre, a private sector initiative of Dr Carolyn Cooper who has done pioneering work to establish reggae studies as an academic enterprise in Jamaica and internationally. In 2008, Cooper chaired the organising committee of the Global Reggae conference which she conceived.
Hosted by the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona where Dr Cooper is a professor of literary and cultural studies, the international conference documented the impact of reggae on every continent.
An influential scholar and cultural entrepreneur, Carolyn Cooper is the author of two innovative books on Jamaican culture: Sound Clash: Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large (2004); and Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender and the ‘Vulgar’ Body of Jamaican Popular Culture (1993).
At the launch event, poets, Mutabaruka, Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze and Joan Andrea Hutchinson will perform. Hutchinson’s latest book, Kin Teet Kibba Heart Bun, will be showcased. Up-and-coming poet, Robert Graham, will read from his manuscript, Deportee: It’s Not Over. The public is invited to attend the launch of the Global Reggae Studies Centre.