Dread Beat An' Blood

The debut album by Linton Kwesi Johnson hits with the force of a fist. A Jamaican-born British immigrant, Johnson worked as a poet and political activist before deciding to set his rhymes and convictions to deep roots music, effectively inventing the style known as "dub poetry". DREAD BEAT AN' BLOOD directly addresses the racial and economic strife of Tory-ruled England in the late 1970s, particularly as it manifested in West Indian and other immigrant communities. With narratives that balance unflinching journalistic accounts of specific injustices ("It Dread Inna Inglan") with high-octane associative lyricism (the title track), Johnson embodies both the militant revolutionary and the visionary prophet.
DREAD BEAT's superb backing band weaves a dub-heavy web that is churning and ominous enough to suit the messages, and when the rhythms combine with Johnson's no-nonsense monotone, with its heavy cadences of British Jamaican patios, the effect is mesmerizing. Although many of the cuts cover issues that are time and site-specific ("Man Free" and "Five Nights of Bleeding" speak to the then-current political plight of individuals), the sheer intensity of Johnson's fervor makes the record timeless. DREAD BEAT is a statement that is impossible to ignore.|

The title pretty much says it all. This is a stunning debut and an indication of the great things that were to come. Johnson's debut is longer on spoken-word pieces than it is on poetry and music, but Dennis Bovell's influence can be felt in these eight tracks. Songs such as "It Dread Inna Inglan," which describes the death of George Lindo at the hands of racists, or "Five Nights of Bleeding," which recounts tales of British police's capricious use of violence against London's West Indian population, are moving and confrontational mini-masterpieces of anger and a man searching for justice in a country that seems all to willing too deny it to him and other Afro-Brits. A powerful and compelling record. ~ John Dougan