LINTON KWESI JOHNSON

By Steve Heilig

Linton Kwesi Johnson, aka LKJ, is the intellectual conscience of reggae music. Since the early 1970s he has forged a melding of true poetry with roots reggae rhythms, holding to a political perspective honed by long involvement with movements for better living conditions and rights for Black people in England, where he has lived since he was eleven years old. As a university student, writer, editor and musician, his voice and words have been unmistakable - unique within reggae, really. Arguably,LKJ invented dub - or reggae - poetry, and still does it best; he is thus both the premiere and premier exemplar of this singular genre of music.

Starting in 1978, he has released a series of albums which still sound timeless even as they address then-current events in the UK and beyond. Key to LKJ's music is the contribution of the unsurpassed bands he has worked with, most notably and lastingly the Dennis Bovell Dub Band. The arrangements LKJ and Bovell provide to surround his poetry are complex yet driving, with rich horn charts and, more recently, violin and flute flavorings.

So although it might seem ironic for a poet, it's really no wonder that the slogan on LKJ's new website ( http:www.lkjrecords.com ) is "Putting the Music Back into Reggae." Albums like "Bass Culture,' "Making History," and "More Time" are treasures of stimulating thought, delivered in LKJ's resonant baritone over and within some of the hardest yet most melodic tracks in reggae. The live CD "LKJ in Concert with the Dub Band" captures his career-spanning shows as of the late 1980s, and the two-CD set "Independant Intavenshan" selects from all his work on Island Records from the years 1979-84.