Linton Kwesi Johnson

Linton Kwesi Johnson, known as LKJ, was born on 24 August 1952 in Chapelton, a small town in the rural parish of Clarendon, Jamaica. He came to London in 1963 to join his mother, who was part of the Windrush generation, attended Tulse Hill secondary school and lived in Brixton. He later took the middle name Kwesi, meaning born on Sunday.

While still at school he joined the Black Panthers, helped to organise a poetry workshop within the movement and developed his work with Rasta Love, a group of poets and drummers. He read sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and his poems first appeared in the magazine Race Today, which published his first collection, Voices of the Living and the Dead, in 1974.

His second book, Dread Beat An' Blood (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1975), signalled the emergence of a new voice in Caribbean poetry, and became the title of his first LP, released by Virgin in 1978, as well as a 1979 documentary film directed by Franco Rosso. He was a pioneer of dub poetry, writing in Jamaican patois and performing his poems over reggae basslines with the producer Dennis Bovell and his band.

His 1980 collection Inglan Is A Bitch, which includes the title poem about racism and low-paid work in 1970s Britain, became a classic, along with Sonny's Lettah and All Wi Doin Is Defendin, which anticipated the 1981 Brixton riots. He recorded albums for Island including Forces of Victory (1979), Bass Culture (1980) and Making History (1983), founded LKJ Records in 1981, presented a ten-part BBC Radio 1 series on Jamaican music, and worked as arts editor of Race Today. In 1981 he helped organise the Black People's Day of Action.

In 2002 he became the first Black poet, and only the second living poet, to be published in Penguin Modern Classics, with Mi Revalueshanary Fren: Selected Poems. His honours include a Grammy nomination in 1985, the Musgrave silver medal and Order of Distinction from Jamaica, honorary doctorates, and the PEN Pinter Prize in 2020. He still lives in Brixton.