Linton Kwesi Johnson—voice of Britain’s post-Windrush Generation—opens London solo show with poetry performance

The legendary Linton Kwesi Johnson, famend because the voice of Britain’s post-Windrush Technology and who just about single-handedly outlined the time period “dub poetry”, has been straddling artistic disciplines for many years. Kwesi Johnson got here to Brixton, South London from Jamaica in 1963 and joined the Black Panthers whereas nonetheless a schoolboy. Early on, his phrases of anger, wrestle and defiance delivered in his signature London-Jamaican-patois had been typically carried out over the heartbeat of a reggae beat, leading to a clutch of groundbreaking albums within the late 70’s and early 80’s, together with Dread Beat an’ Blood (1978); Forces of Victory (1979); Bass Tradition (1980) and Making Historical past (1983).

The affect of the 70-year-old additionally extends all through a number of generations of the British artwork world. When Yinka Shonibare coordinated the Royal Academy’s Summer season Exhibition, he invited Kwesi Johnson to learn Di Nice Insohreckshan, his poem that addresses the Brixton riots in 1981, as a part of the academy’s Sound Programme. Steve McQueen additionally used Johnson’s poetry in his acclaimed BBC drama sequence Small Axe (2020); and commissioned a brand new poem, In direction of Closure, for his three-part documentary sequence Rebellion (2021). However Kwesi Johnson had already made forays into up to date artwork: again within the early 80s he organised an open exhibition of Black British artwork with the purpose of platforming artwork in tune with the wrestle for racial justice that included Keith Piper, Eddie Chambers and Sonia Boyce.

It was additionally round this time {that a} youthful Peter Doig went to see Kwesi Johnson performing on the Ritzy in Brixton. “One of many musicians whose music led me to London was Linton,” Doig tells me. “I first noticed him in 1980, the yr after I arrived from Toronto.” Doig nonetheless vividly remembers the Brixton gig as “a robust efficiency as a lot as a live performance: LKJ had this sort of non fashion stylishness… he didn’t seem like a musician—both from reggae or the pop worlds—his phrases had been spoken, which actually suited his look, a bit like a cool trainer. His music nonetheless sounds as contemporary and stunning immediately because it did again then.”

One other longstanding LKJ fan is Sir Peter Blake, the nonagenarian grand previous man of British pop artwork, who remembers seeing Kwesi Johnson supporting Ian Dury and the Blockheads on the Hammersmith Palais in 1979 and being so enthused that he returned for seven nights in a row.

Blake’s 2020 watercolour portrait head of Kwesi Johnson, together with a brand new portray by Peter Doig commemorating that long-ago Brixton gig, are presently on present in The Knowledge Man, at Paul Stolper Gallery, an exhibition that pays well timed tribute to Kwesi Johnson’s pivotal and enduring cultural position throughout the UK and past. There are additionally etchings by Kwesi Johnson’s near-contemporary, Denzil Forrester, a knitted yarn portrait by musician Rod Melvin (who additionally performed with Ian Dury) and a bronze bust and two work by Errol Lloyd, the London-based, Jamaica-born artist who was a key member of the Caribbean Artists Motion and stays a longstanding good friend of Kwesi Johnson.

Different works embrace Petra Börner’s portrait collage of Kwesi Johnson that was used for the quilt of his 2006 anthology printed by Penguin books, and a trio of distinctive bearded portraits by Derrick Alexis Coard that the late artist described as “a symbolic expression for potential change for the African-American male neighborhood”.

Doig, Blake and Errol Lloyd had been all in attendance on the present’s packed opening, which was additionally memorably marked by the ever dapper presence of the Nice Man in his trademark swimsuit and cap. With attribute modesty, Kwesi Johnson declared the present “a golden alternative” to showcase the work of his good friend Errol Lloyd, declaring, “That’s why I’m right here.” He then mesmerised the room with three poetic elegies to his father, his nephew Bernard and the Afro-German poet Might Ayim, in addition to a current poem written in Brixton, within the midst of the pandemic, to the ominous backdrop of “di unrelentin’ wailin’ soun’ of sirens”.

Afterwards, in dialog with Roger Robinson, the British-Trinidadian author, performer and winner of the T.S. Eliot poetry prize (who stated he “wouldn’t have written something with out LKJ”), Kwesi Johnson reaffirmed that, regardless of having performed with everybody from Pete Tosh to Gil Scott-Heron and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and having been supplied—and turned down—a a number of album deal from Island Information, nonetheless “the music was only a option to attain extra individuals”. With LKJ, it has all the time been the phrases that come first, as he places it, “writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon.” And proper now, all of us want his phrases greater than ever.

• The Knowledge Man, Paul Stolper Gallery, London, till April 21