BY RICHARD PITHOUSE
Reggae has been an important world music ever since the release of Bob Marley's Catch a Fire back in 1973. For obvious reasons, it has always had a particular resonance in Africa and in marginalised communities and countries around the globe. But now that Marley and Peter Tosh are dead, Lee Perry is chilling in Switzerland and UB40 suck like a bucket of ticks, dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson is one of the few reggae greats still making music and getting respect.
LKJ is a busy man and his work as a respected journalist, poet and community activist means that he can't devote all his energies to his music. In fact it's been more than seven long years since the release of his last album, Tings and Times, and so it seems appropriate that the new album is called More Time.
The rhythms and grooves on More Time are as seductive as ever but they are less martial and a little jazzier than his previous work. At times the mood is so light that the brass floats above the dub groove like a dragon fly. You can almost see the sun shimmering on its wings.
The political suss is still there though. "New World Hawdah" is particularly potent. It's a powerful critique of the journalism that uncritically replicates the self-serving perversion of language that infects the press releases of the powerful. Noam Chomsky would approve.
But, nevertheless, it's still clear that the man who once declared that "Inglan is a Bitch", celebrated "Di Great Insohreckshun" and suggested that the correct response to police brutality was to "Smash their brains in" has mellowed. He starts the album by asking for "More time to meditate and create" and goes onto introspect about "the fragrant forests of the night" before concluding that "life is the teacher, love is the lesson."
But who can diss the man for mellowing? No one can be a single-minded fighter all their life. Heroes like Steve Biko and Che Guevara were murdered in their prime but, who knows, if it hadn't been for the South African Police and CIA they might have become organic farmers or kindly old professors.
LKJ has earned his demobilisation from the constraining responsibilities that come with being a full-time warrior. Many of the new generation who have taken up the struggle for truth and justice, like the Asian Dub Foundation in Britain, Rage Against the Machine in the United States and South Africa's Lesego Rampolkeng and Prophets of Da City have built on LKJ's rich legacy.
It seems that he's passed Marley's torch on to a new generation and that's how is should be. If you're in a mellow but still conscious mood, the LKJ's new album will be a good investment for the well-being of your mind and soul. When it's spinning on your deck it won't be long before your neurons start firing and your smile spreads down to your hips and slowly turns into a full-on skank.
[Richard Pithouse teaches Philosophy at the Workers' College and the University of Durban-Westville, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He writes on politics, media and music for South African radio stations, newspapers and magazines, as well as underground Durban publications like Durban Poison and Bunnychow.]