Linton Kwesi Johnson used his position as the preeminent dub poet to introduce a brilliant young Jamaican poet to a wider audience, in the early '80s. Dub poetry embodies reggae rhythms, and much of it carries militant political messages. Michael Smith's poetry is intensely personal as well as political. On this recording it is paired with the ever-powerful music of Dennis Bovell and his Dub Band, supplemented by a couple of members of Aswad. It makes for a very strong recording.
This record has cult status, for a year after it was released, Michael Smith was murdered during a ferocious period of political warfare on the streets of Jamaica. It received lukewarm promotion and limited distribution from Island Records. Yet Michael Smith deserves to be heard. Here is your chance.
Michael Smith deserves to be read, too, so here is a high resolution image of the album sleeve with his poetry. A good article about the man and this album can be found
here.
4 comments:
This is a great album and on one track with my favorite trombone player RICO!
http://ricorodriguez.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
Thanks for pointing Rico out - he had slipped by me. You are right, it is an incredibly tight album. The Bovell band, with friends, was totally dialed.
How nice of you! This is a very good poet and a slim volume of his few existing poems came out on I think it was City Light Books, still have the copy both the book and the LP rip and photos were ready since quite some time but I never came "in the mood" for bringing it to our ears! Maybe I'll post the book later :-) Thank you very much! It is a great album! And he was a great poet killed in his youth diet too young ...
very sad ..
I might have that book, too. Thanks for your kind words!
It was a very sad end for a great talent.
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