Linton Kwesi Johnson
Poetry Reading

Linton Kwesi Johnson came to London in 1963 as part of the first wave of Caribbean immigrants. He joined the British Black Panthers while still at secondary school, studied Sociology at Goldsmiths College, and he is a poet, activist, and Grammy-nominated musician, alongside his activities as a teacher, journalist, publicist, and producer. His first volume of poetry, Voices of the Living and the Dead, was published in 1974. From the 1970s, as editor of the magazine Race Today, he helped to spread African, Afro-American, and Afro-Caribbean voices in Britain. He was the first Black writer to be included in Penguin’s canonical Modern Classics series, and previously was awarded the English PEN’s Pinter Prize. In 2023, half a century after his debut as a writer, he published Time Come, the first collection of his prose works.

His first record, Dread Beat an’ Blood, came out in 1978 and he has since released more than a dozen albums, many of them on his own LKJ Records label, where he has also been producing fellow artists since 1981. His records are among the best-selling reggae albums worldwide. With the Dennis Bovell Dub Band, he has played concerts throughout Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe.

Johnson has always understood writing as a political act and poetry and music as tools in a cultural struggle. As part of this year’s Sonic Pluriverse Festival: Bass Cultures, he opens with a reading of his poems.

 

Queen Omega & The Royal Souls

Born in San Fernando, Trinidad, Queen Omega combines reggae, calypso, soca, jazz, and soul. At the age of nine, encouraged by her mother, she started participating in talent shows and writing her own calypsos, and soon made it onto television. Through her musical family, she came into contact with Caribbean reggae and dancehall at an early age, but also loved soul divas like Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston, whose influence can be heard in her music. She learned her trade from the ground up, starting out as a back-up singer in various soca bands before becoming an icon of roots reggae with her own pointed lyrics, deeply rooted in her Rastafarian faith and often with a critical, feminist message. In 2023, after a ten-year break devoted mainly to her family, Queen Omega returned to performing.  At Sonic Pluriverse Festival: Bass Cultures she performs with the band The Royal Souls.