lkjacap

October 18, 1998

LKJ CD 016

Available from LKJ Records Tel. 0 1 71 738 7647

He has been called everything from 'Britain's widely acclaimed cult hero' (The South African Star) to 'premier dub poet' (The Scotsman). He is seen as 'one of Britain 'a most influential and original voices' (Arts Council of England) yet he also 'gives language to folk without a voice' (The Glasgow Herald).

Linton Kwesi Johnson is known as the world's first reggae poet, the man who articulates the everyday oppressions and struggles of blacks in the UK through lyrical verse and reggae. The Jamaican-born performer has achieved world-wide fame as a reggae artist, touring countries as far apart as Japan, South Africa, Italy and Canada with the Dennis Bovell Dub Band.

Now Linton Kwesi Johnson is putting the 'poetry' rather than the 'dub' at the forefront of his work once again. LKJ A CAPPELLA LIVE is a compilation of his readings from the last four years. Venues in Belgium, Holland and the UK provide the backdrop for fourteen tracks ranging from the classic 'Five Nights of Bleeding' chronicling a number of violent incidents involving young blacks in the early seventies to 'Hurricane Blues', an unpublished love poem. Together the readings emphasize the intrinsic musicality of Linton Kwesi Johnson's poetry, its rhythmic 'acCapella' nature. And they show us just why 'his is poetry meant to recoup lost structures, identities, pure "rhythm and roots", poetry integrating audience and performer in one collective voice' (Cyril Dabydeen, World Literature Today).

LKJ A CAPPELLA Live LKJ was launched on 25 September 1996 to coincide with the only London performance this year of Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Dennis Bovell Dub Band at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. The best-selling live album LKJ in Concert with the Dub Band was recorded at the same venue in 1984: as such, it is the perfect choice to celebrate the release of LKJ A Capella LIVE, a testimony to Linton Kwesi Johnson's enduring popularity and presence.

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