Time Come: Selected Prose by Linton Kwesi Johnson is out now, published by Pan MacMillan and he is appearing in Conversation in Liverpool on the 9th May and at Brixton Library on the 17th May. His influence of British cultural life is inestimable. ““Recognized as one of the great poets of modern times, and as a deeply respected and influential political and cultural activist and social critic, Linton Kwesi Johnson…” Pan McMillian
I’m filing this under Poetry by Others as Linton Kwesi Johnson is best known for his dub poetry. The title of this collection of prose comes from his poem Time Come on the album Forces of Victory released in 1979, a defiant lament with these last three stanzas:
“It soon come/ It soon come/ Is de shadow walkin behind yu/ Is I stannup rite before yu/ Look out!
But it too late now/ I did warn yu/ When yu fling mi inna prison/ I did warn yu/ When yu kill Oluwale/ I did warn yu/ When yu beat Joshua Francis
I did warn yu/ When yu pick pan de Panthers/ I did warn yu/ When yu jack mi up gainst de wall/ Ha didnt bawl/ But I did warn yu”
Time Come: Selected Prose is collection of essays and lectures, book and record reviews, published in newspapers and magazines, and includes obituaries and speeches selected by Linton Kwesi Johnson brought together for the first time.
I can’t help thinking how absolutely relevant are those two words, “Time Come” now as then in the context of the multiple crises the whole world faces right now, in my opinion, multiple opportunities for us to connect and change this world. Linton Kwesi Johnson is and was always relevant with words that cut sharp, cut thru.
“Written over many decades, it is a body of work that draws creatively and critically on Johnson’s own Jamaican roots and on Caribbean history to explore the politics of race that continue to inform the Black British experience. Ranging from reflections on the place of music in Caribbean and Black British culture as a creative, defiant response to oppression, to his penetrating appraisals of music and literature, and including warm tributes paid to the activists and artists who inspired him to find his own voice as a poet and compelled him to contribute to the struggle for racial equality and social justice.”
I also can’t help reflecting on a personal memories; the privilege of seeing LKJ live and how in the early days of punk a bunch of us decided what our sterile home town, the New Town of Stevenage, needed was a bit of graffiti. We had previously re-enacted the cover of the first Damned album, (so that would most likely make it 1977, would make me 15.) The boys up against a wall, faces covered with cream. I took the photo. Graffiti was the logical next step.
So we set off down to the alley that led out of Peartree Park, a secluded space with a huge white wall at the end of a terrace, with our cans of spray paint and up went the words; The Clash, The Damned, U.K. Subs, Sham 69 and The Jam. Someone added at the centre the word BRIXTON and LKJ. I have a photo of this some place.
I seem to remember asking, who’s Brixton? What’s LKJ? Someone, pretty sure it was Donald, (not his real name, who I was more than a bit in love with) said, “Punk rock init!” At that time that expression, used like that, conveyed; good, admirable, to be respected, though at the time I was none the wiser.
Back then Stevenage New Town was almost entirely white and exclusively working class. It was The Clash that led us to dub and reggae though we were unaware of the intellectual and cultural forces rising at this fervent and formenting time.
It was the same year The Anti Nazi League and Rock Against Racism were launched bringing together dub poets including Linton Kwesi Johnson, bands such as Misty in Roots and Steel Pulse with punk bands. We wouldn’t get to discover that for another year when gigs began in the next town of Hitchin.
Time Come: Selected Prose opens with an essay called Jamaican Rebel Music which appeared in Race and Class in 1976. In this essay Linton Kwesi Johnson describes how Jamaican music “embodies the historical experience of the Jamaican masses”. And yet it transcended that, not only to appeal to the Black British experience but to white subcultures and our little provincial town.
A few years later circa ‘79 in a punk squat in Islington I’d finally got to hear Linton Kwesi Johnson and other dub artists. It reminds me how punk, dub and reggae entwined at that time in a defiant call of resistance to what was a country riddled with racism and sexism, (just watch 1970’s sit-coms to get a flavour of that).
It was a time plagued with the rise of the right in the form of the National Front and the beginning of austerity under a Labour government, who had gone cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund and subsequently with inflation at 20% imposed a 5% pay offer on public sector workers leading to the winter of discontent. I guess in this context we felt defacing a hidden wall was small beef.
When I moved to London never expected to end up living in Brixton, I had my sights set on Islington or Notting Hill, never imagined working literally next door, at Brixton Advice Centre, to the former offices of the Race Today Collective established by Darcus Howe, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Leila Hassan, Jean Ambrose and others. As if those words on the wall were prophetic. Can’t wait to read this book.
In a review in the Guardian Colin Grant writes, “LKJ recalls that, aged 11, he left Jamaica for England armed with proverbs, hymns, folk songs and the sounds of mento and ska. When giving voice to his experience, he drew on the deep well of his Caribbean education, constructing verse that became “a weapon in the black liberation struggle”, making each gig a call to arms… Given the neglect of the “sufferahs” in our society and the shameful assault on refugees, the grace and power of LKJ’s writing are as necessary as ever.”
Absolutely.
See the full review here
Tributes
‘Sharp and still relevant’ – Zadie Smith
‘A mosaic of wise, urgent and moving pieces’ – Kit de Waal
‘A book to be savoured and re-read’ – Derek Owusu
‘An outstanding collection’ – Caryl Phillips
‘A necessary book from a writer who continues to inspire’ – Yomi Sode
‘Incisive, engaging, fearless’ – Gary Younge
Time Come: Selected Prose is available from Rough Trade Records and all major bookshops.
A blog post by Anne Enith Cooper
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