Dub Poetry Research Articles

“Dis Poem Shall Call Names Names”: Naming in Reggae Culture, the Example of Dub Poetry

The question of names and naming emerged as a crucial concern in the cultures of the African diaspora as a way to resist the anonymity and loss of identity imposed upon slaves. Through examples taken from reggae culture and the subgenre known as dub poetry, this paper looks at how names imply a political and poetic use of language in black Atlantic cultures.

To Be Dub, Female and Black: Towards a Womban-Centred Afro-Caribbean Diasporic Performance Aesthetic in Toronto

This essay traces the contributions of Afro-Caribbean women, particularly Rhoma Spencer, ahdri zhina mandiela, and d’bi.young anitafrika, to a developing performance aesthetic in Toronto that is grounded in Caribbean cultural texts. It focuses on ways in which the work of these women has consciously challenged and queered Canadian and Caribbean theatrical and performance forms as well as heterosexist and masculinist cultural nationalisms and colonial modernities. Spencer, through her company Theatre Archipelago, employs a “poor theatre” aesthetic, a presentational sensibility, exhuberant performances, and a richness of language, all grounded in Caribbean traditions such as carnival, ’mas, and calypso, to speak in complex ways about the politics of class, gender, and race with a clear emphasis on women. mandiela, through her company bcurrent and especially through her plays dark diaspora in dub! and who knew grannie, has invented and developed a new form, dub theatre, out of the Jamaican-based traditions of dub poetry. d’bi.young anitafrika has followed in mandiela’s footsteps, contributing to the women’s dub tradition through the invention of what she calls “biomyth monodrama” as exemplified in her sankofa trilogy. These women have constituted a Toronto within the city that functions as a transformative space operating at the intersection of nations, sexualities, and performance forms to queer traditional theatrical hierarchies, together with the largely masculinist ethos of much Caribbean performance and the narrow chronopolitics of modernist colonial “development.” They have created and continue to develop entirely new, empowering, “womban-centered,” and “revolushunary” Afro-Caribbean forms that are (re)grounded in traditions of the grannies, the griots, the nation languages of the people, and movement and language that emerge from and celebrate Black women’s bodies in a transnational Canadian-Caribbean diaspora.

“The Working Side of Art”: Richard Grant in Conversation with Anouk Lang

In this interview with Anouk Lang, the poet Richard Grant discusses his journey to becoming a professional performance poet: how he first came into contact with the dub poetry scene at university, his time as the Birmingham poet laureate in 2005-06, and his work with other spoken word poets at festivals, performances and school workshops around the UK. Topics covered include the role of live poetry in a culture in which sales of print publications are falling and new technologies are enabling writers to reach new audiences, poetry as a tool for confronting social issues such as racial conflict, the task of the poet laureate in relation to the city and the community, and generational, cultural and class divides in the contemporary British arts world.

Métamorphoses transnationales de l’oralité africaine : la poésie dub de L. K. Johnson

Dub poetry represents a major form of Black popular art, standing as a perfect mix of past and present, of tradition and experimentation. Dub poetry makes use of the old oral traditions of Africa (mixing storytelling, music, poetry and performance) and has developed out of the reggae tradition in Jamaica and England, using the same channels of communication - records, live act, music - as the singers and DJs involved in the scene. Linton Kwesi Johnson’s dub poetry - which is based on a fascinating synthesis of Caribbean dialect and the rhythms of reggae and dub - speaks to the heart of the British experience of London black youth. Johnson’s work on language has, according to Hitchcock, the effect of providing his community - that of first and second generation Caribbean immigrants living in Britain - with a shared linguistic code enunciated through a shared cultural practice, that is reggae. Through this very language Johnson can comment on racial discrimination and social injustice- in such poems as It Dread inna Inglan and Sonny’s Lettah provoking an active/committed reaction from his audience.

From Page-Poet to Recording Artist: Mutabaruka interviewed by Eric Doumerc

Mutabaruka is a dub poet who has been performing in Jamaica and all over the world since the 1970s. Over the years he has made his mark both as a page-poet and as a dynamic performer and he has reached his audience through sound recordings and books. In this interview he discusses the reasons that initially led him to write, the development of dub poetry as opposed to deejay music, the relationship between his poetry and traditional English poetry, the importance of religion in Jamaica and his work as a radio host (for his show “The Cutting Edge”) and record producer. Well-known poems by Mutabaruka, including “Revolutionary Poets”, “Dis Poem” and “The People’s Court” are also discussed, providing some insight into their composition.

Sound or Text: How Do You Heal a “Foreign Anguish”?

M. NOURBESE PHILIP PUBLISHED Discourse on Logic of Language in collection titled She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks (1989) address a diasporic collective identity, demanding a recognition and of a shared history in a Canadian landscape (CD track 10). In that she assumes the ordeal of testimony for people, calling audience hold we centre of rememberance / that forgets never that seers / word from source (96). By acting as voice of this community, she seeks break culture of silence and reclaim power of word. In order do so, she not only addresses topic of but also subverts standard English lyric voice with frequent interruptions in Trinidadian English speech. (1) However, as she 'became conscious of wanting subvert lyric voice [...] I had so succeeded at 'subversion; I found it difficult 'read' many of poems in collection, she reveals in A Genealogy of Resistance and Other Essays (126). Therein lies paradox of linguistic subversion: although she has disrupted authority of standard English, its language and history, she has disrupted ability read poems aloud. As a result, she determines that my work does not fit traditions of Black (A Genealogy 130-31) that rely upon performance and transmission. Thus, unreadable poems alienated from community of Caribbean and Afrosporic whom she was trying represent. At time of She Tries Her Tongue's publication, there were a number of dub poetry anthologies produced in Canada and in diaspora at large. (2) However, when placed side by side with a dub poet in a public reading, she feels that she has compete, but in vain, for that identification. Once asked perform after dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, she felt bound fail: [M]y poetry [...] was difficult 'read'--even I found that so ... I found myself avoiding these poems that could be described as 'difficult' and 'abstract' or 'innovative' In order address desired audience, members of diaspora, she selected poems, usually older ones, which were closer, on surface at least, being 'spiritual helpmate of Black nation' poems more in line with the traditions of Black (A Genealogy 129). (3) At time of writing, Afro-diasporic authenticity included having ability represent and replicate an oral voice. Nonetheless, graphical manipulation of text, particularly in standard English, is a dominant concern for Philip because she identifies language as place where fissure between a collective and a personal identity occurs. As critic Hortense Spillers claims that African-American writing is subject violent formation of a modern consciousness, [propagated by] initiative strikes which open Atlantic Slave Trade (63), so too does Philip assert that the progenitors of society as it exists today created a situation such that equation between i-mage and word was destroyed for in context of slavery (She Tries 14). [I]n stripping of language, by forced relocation and immersion in foreign language of English, slave's voice lost power to make and, simultaneously, express (12) and could only articulate a European ethnocentric world view that affirmed negative ]-mages about her (16). The role of New World Artist, according Philip, is give voice this split ]-mage of voiced silence (16), using new and different words, forged by the African []]n vortex of New World slavery (17)--words that comprise the demotic (18). As well, Philip alters orthography of word image speak essential being of people ... for whom artist creates. (4) Thus, Philip believes that she must, as Spillers puts it, strip down through layers of attenuated meanings . …

Linton Kwesi Johnson's Dub Poetry and the Political Aesthetics of Carnival in Britain

Research Article| October 01 2006 Linton Kwesi Johnson's Dub Poetry and the Political Aesthetics of Carnival in Britain Ashley Dawson Ashley Dawson Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Small Axe (2006) 10 (3): 54–69. https://doi.org/10.1215/-10-3-54 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter Email Permissions Search Site Citation Ashley Dawson; Linton Kwesi Johnson's Dub Poetry and the Political Aesthetics of Carnival in Britain. Small Axe 1 October 2006; 10 (3): 54–69. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/-10-3-54 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter Books & JournalsAll JournalsSmall Axe Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Small Axe Incorporated2006 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Linton Kwesi Johnson's Dub Poetry and the Political Aesthetics of Carnival in Britain

Linton Kwesi Johnson's Dub Poetry and the Political Aesthetics of Carnival in Britain

Linton Kwesi Johnson's Dub Poetry and the Political Aesthetics of Carnival in Britain

Linton Kwesi Johnson's Dub Poetry and the Political Aesthetics of Carnival in Britain

Syncretism as a strategy of political resistance in the poetry of Lesego Rampolokeng

This article deals with the importance of hybridity and syncretism in postcolonial and postapartheid writing as ways of resisting dominant political and cultural discourses. Specifically it concerns the poetry of Lesego Rampolokeng as an example of this strategy. It examines specific cultural influences that give Rampolokeng's poetry its syncretic and non-aligned aspect, notably praise poetry and the poetry of the Black Consciousness movement. The syncretism of Rampolokeng's work can also be related to poetry of the diaspora, in particular the Caribbean dub poets. The argument demonstrates how Rampolokeng uses the debasing techniques of Caribbean dub and the tactics of the carnivalesque to subvert privileged forms of "high art" poetry and de-centre hegemonic discourse. This demonstration is based on a brief comparison of the verse of Rampolokeng and the Caribbean-English poet, Benjamin Zepheniah, noting the similarities in their textual strategies of resistance

Goon poets of the black Atlantic: Linton Kwesi Johnson's imagined canon

What is T.S. Eliot's relationship to the black Atlantic? This is a question posednot by Paul Gilroy but implicitly by Jamaican-born, London-based dub poet LintonKwesi Johnson. The addition of his Mi Revalueshanary Fren: Selected Poems (2002)to the Penguin Classics canon is an occasion for Johnson's own interrogationof the canon through art in ""If I Woz a Tap-Natch Poet''.This poem is a sly exploration of Johnson's interstitial position betweenmusician and poet, between "high' art and popular culture, betweenpolitics and aesthetics. It evinces a self-consciousness about the manner in whichliterary history is written, challenged and inscribed within poetry itself. It alsoexplores poetry's potential to be a mode of self-definition for Johnson throughself-positioning within and against a poetical context. Johnson both appropriatesand rejects the form's exclusionary tendencies; his own litany of alternativecanon figures is self-aware and playful, as he imagines himself as a ""goon poet'' in contrast with conservative transatlantic figures like Eliot.A black Atlantic migrant himself, Johnson configures within the poem his own dis-placement and mobile existence: as the suppositional title of the poem indicates, thepoet's ontology can hardly be grounded, given the radical contingencies anddynamism of the canon itself, which appears as an imagined formation, subject toconjecture and reordering. Johnson rejects it for another imagined community,following the politics of Nelson Mandela and the global unity engendered by thefight against apartheid in South Africa. Johnson suggests that diasporic connectionsemerge through shared political goals rather than through ethno-geographical unityor the hierarchical strategies of literary canonization.

Dub and Difference: A Conversation with Jean "Binta" Breeze

Jamaican-born Jean "Binta" Breeze is an internationally-renowned poet, actress, storyteller, dancer, and theatrical director who writes and performs both in standard English and Jamaican patois. She grew up in Patty Hill, a small village in the hills of Hanover before moving to Kingston in 1978 to study at the Jamaica School of Drama, where she met the dub poets Oku Onuora, Mikey Smith, and Mutabaruka. Dub poetry, which is the term used for a poetic style that fuses reggae music with the spoken word, is a transatlantic form that emerged simultaneously in Kingston and London and subsequently spread to more far-flung places like South Africa. Breeze first performed onstage in 1981 with Mutabaruka in Montego Bay and went on to record a number of songs that received airplay on Jamaica's reggae stations. The British dub poet, Linton Kwesi Johnson, heard Breeze and decided to introduce her to a European audience. She has lived in London since 1985 but spends a few months each year in Hanover to be with her three children.

Black Religious Ethics and Higher Education: Rastafarian identity as a resource for inclusiveness

Rastafarian identity represents an ethical resource for broadening discussions about inclusiveness in university communities. Based on interviews with Rastas in Jamaica and interpretations of Rastafarian dub poetry and song lyrics, Rastafarian consciousness is described in terms of concepts of self (I-n-I), lifestyle (livity) and community (Ithiopia). Rasta self-concepts are then viewed as creative catalysts for illuminating globalization discussions, and Rasta lifestyles are seen as potential resources for social ethical criticism of international patterns of consumption.

La « dub poetry » : évolution d’un genre

Dub poetry is a form of oral poetry which developed in Jamaica in the 1970 's and which drew its inspiration from the rhythmic patterns and lyrical concerns of Jamaican popular music (reggae). A new art form thus appeared, situated at the crossroads of popular music and poetry, two fields of activity that were deemed to be incompatible. The stylistic and thematic developments of dub poetry gave rise to a heated debate, and doubts were expressed as to the literary quality of such an art form. Moreover a number of dub poets began to distance themselves from the thematic and formal constraints of a genre of poetry that they found limiting and repetitive. Dub poetry was in crisis, but the poets themselves managed to get out of the impasse in which they found themselves by revitalizing dub poetry from a thematic and stylistic point of view. Today dub poetry remains a living and rejuvenated form of poetry.

‘Dub Poetry’?

‘Dub Poetry’?

Five Nights of Bleeding (for Leroy Harris)

Critical QuarterlyVolume 38, Issue 4 p. 78-80 Free Access Five Nights of Bleeding (for Leroy Harris) LINTON KWESI JOHNSON, LINTON KWESI JOHNSON Pioneering figure in black poetry and music. He originated dub poetry', and went on to develop it into a gutsy musical idiom along with fellow poets such as Oku Onuora, Muta and Mikey Smith. He has performed throughout Britain, Europe, America and the Caribbean with musicians including Rasta Love, the Dub Band, Dennis Bovell and Shake Keane.Search for more papers by this author LINTON KWESI JOHNSON, LINTON KWESI JOHNSON Pioneering figure in black poetry and music. He originated dub poetry', and went on to develop it into a gutsy musical idiom along with fellow poets such as Oku Onuora, Muta and Mikey Smith. He has performed throughout Britain, Europe, America and the Caribbean with musicians including Rasta Love, the Dub Band, Dennis Bovell and Shake Keane.Search for more papers by this author First published: December 1996 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8705.1996.tb02265.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume38, Issue4December 1996Pages 78-80 This article also appears in:Black History Month in the UK RelatedInformation

“Playing With Tension” What ‘voice’ does popular theatre speak?

Popular theatre makes strange bedfellows: artists and activists, cultural workers and community organizers, theatre and social action. I found myself in this world by accident in 1982, writing a play about people who were handicapped. They ended up making their own play, with me acting more as dramaturge than playwright, and I became excited by the notion of ordinary people telling their stories. I left the so-called mainstream theatre, started a community arts company in Toronto1 and began putting my theatre friends together with community workers I was meeting to see what would happen. I learned about popular education. I wandered into a community legal clinic to encorporate the company, and met activist and dub poet Lillian Allen who was working there at the time. When I told her what I was up to, she said, “Oh, you do popular theatre.” “What’s that?” I asked.

Verbal Riddim: The Politics and Aesthetics of African-Caribbean Dub Poetry

Verbal Riddim: The Politics and Aesthetics of African-Caribbean Dub Poetry

"It Dread Inna Inglan": Linton Kwesi Johnson, Dread, and Dub Identity

“It Dread Inna Inglan”: Linton Kwesi Johnson, Dread, and Dub Identity Postmodern Culture Version1 Peter Hitchcock it is noh mistri wi mekkin histri it is noh mistri wi winnin victri (“Mekkin Histri” LKJ) “The trouble with the English is that their history happened overseas, so they don’t know what it means” (The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie) In order to appreciate the achievement of Linton Kwesi Johnson (LKJ), the African/Caribbean/European dub poet, one must come to terms with the cultural specificity of the voice, and what the voice can do. Mekkin histri. Making history? What recidivism might this be at the end of the twentieth century? The double-displacement of an African- Caribbean Black living in England, diaspora upon diaspora, comes with a double-indemnity—making and history. What cultural logic obtains in the construction/reconstruction of subjectivity as subaltern, the articulation of the margin, the trace, the veve, that still allows a trenchant sense of history, of the need to make history? Can we still conceive of subjects that make history, have a history to make, remake at a cacophonous rendezvous of victory? To understand why this notion is not a mystery (the History, for instance, of imperialist certitude) but a problematic, one must understand what makes this history: one must come to terms with the history of the voice, what Kamau Brathwaite calls the “invitation and challenge,”2 or what Edouard Glissant defines as “literature” and “oraliture” (the fragmented and therefore shared histories and voices of peoples).3 One can read this history as an introduction in LKJ’s sonorous beat, and one can see this history in a dissidence of voice, in all its synesthesia and dislocation. The sounds of dislocation. Our trust in electricity makes the archive of the voice seem a recent technology: LKJ himself is “available in all three formats” (CD, cassette, and the fast disappearing LP). But the voice at issue has, shall we say, a much longer geneology, a history that “happened overseas.” Thanks to Columbus’s “discovery” (the kind of “surprise” common to colonialism), the Amerindians of the Caribbean were soon in short supply and so began one of the darkest chapters in forced relocation and labor in human history. Except, of course, that such a chapter remains largely unwritten, not just because of racist ideology, the loathsome lacuna of the “official story,” but because this history is an archaeology of voice, a history intoned more than inscribed. As such, it is a history articulated in the clash and fierce concatenation of colonial power and resistance characterized by the internecine struggles of languages and cultures, Ashanti, Yoruba, Congolese, French, English, Spanish, and Dutch. The word creole only begins to do justice to the range of this struggle even if its logic of hybridity suggests a new understanding of what constitutes “sound” evidence. Theory has trained us, and rightly so, to be suspicious of the voice and the ontology it confers. Yet, what I am calling dub identity is not about the presence of being, but being in between, the “Middle Passages” that Brathwaite (among others) has elaborated, or the “black atlantic” model that Paul Gilroy has proposed.4 The problem of dub is the sound of diaspora, and its doubling, its versions. Thus, if the following notes are read as an introduction to LKJ, they only begin to imagine the utterance he makes, in all its complexity, as testimony and travelogue: the subjective states of being, in between. Obviously, in his history of the voice Brathwaite is not claiming that dub poetry, Jamaican “sound” poetry, the righteous riddim of resistance, is purely a phenomenon of sound (who would want to fall into that Cartesian chasm of speech/writing made infamous by Derrida?). He is saying, however, that without an adequate theory of performativity and voice one cannot hope to fathom cultural expression under the mark of cultural erasure, the colonizer/ postcolonizer’s denial of voice, whether poetic, polemical, or political. For Brathwaite, language from the Anglophone Caribbean is “a process of using English,” not just in the well-documented sense of creolization (patois), but a particular socialization of the voice. Brathwaite’s specific concern has been for an...

Can a dub poet be a woman?

Can a dub poet be a woman?