BY MILLER FRANCIS

For almost two years you'd think some people in the distribution and promotion business were out to make Linton Kwesi Johnson the best kept secret in music. Dread Beat an' Blood (Virgin), released in 1978 under the name “Poet and the Roots,” was celebrated only among a small group of new LKJ fanatics and almost impossible to find even as an import. But clearly something new was kicking to be born: “Shock-black bubble-doun-beat bouncing rock-wise tumble-doun sound music; foot-drop find drum, blood story, bass history is a moving, is a hurting black story.” The word finally got out, and Forces of Victory showed up in most good record stores followed by a true masterpiece, Bass Culture, and the most recent album, LKJ In Dub (all on Mango Records).

Called “Poet” by residents of the now famous London district of Brixton where his family moved from Jamaica in the 1960s, Linton Kwesi Johnson was inspired by the writings of W. E. B. DuBois and angry young Black poets in the U.S., and radicalized by the British Black Panther Party. Most important for music lovers, however, he “found that music imposed itself on my words, so that whenever a line came to me, it always came with a bass line” – the beginnings of what he later called “bass culture”. Reggae “toasters” (like Big Youth) who talk over the music caught his ear, and he dropped English to write in “Caribbean creole” (Jamaican dialect).

Soon he had developed his own unique and personal “reggae poetry” meant to be heard and not seen. This new music for the '80s burns low but intensely, like a hot blue flame sparked from the same social milieu that recently exploded in the Brixton uprising, a week-long clash between rebel youth and British police. Quietly but militantly “sung” in a rich, deep voice aching with pain and anger, these street raps rich with imagery and symbols are coolly tempered with a confidence that victims can and will turn into victors: “Thunder from a bass drum soundin'/Rhythm of historical yearning/Rhythm of the time of turning.”

Much reggae is rebel music, but LKJ doesn't just use it as a gimmick; he develops it, often challenging the “reggae status quo” itself. While viewing the Rastafarian religious beliefs as “the most powerful expression of anti-colonial sentiments in the Caribbean,” he is not a Rastafarian and takes steady aim at what he sees as the backward pull of religion: “This is the age of decision/So make we leggo religion/This is the age of science and technology/So make we leggo mythology.” He also breaks sharply with the Marcus Garvey-inspired “Back to Africa” movement popular among some West Indian peoples; he answers the racist “send them back” repatriation politics of the National Front (Britain's Ku Klux Klan) simply and directly: “No matter what they say, come what may, we are here to stay in-a Inglan.”

 Paul Simenon of the Clash said he turned on to reggae partly because “it's like the only sort of music I've heard where you can actually hear the bass” On LKJ's albums, the bass seems to be playing lead half the time, and this “bass culture” is more than an instrumental sound based on the rising musical form of reggae. The bass is the bottom, the deep notes, the sounds from below, the beat of the heart of the oppressed, music that delves “deep down to the root of the pain”.

Along with co-producer Blackbeard (Dennis Bovell), a reggae innovator in his own right, LKJ weaves a rich, pulsating tapestry of roots/rock/rebel on his albums. In the process, LKJ demolishes all conventional notions of “protest music”. This is not slogans or philosophical lectures set to a reggae beat; in fact, each album breaks more fully with some minor lapses into sloganeering on the first album. LKJ, a pioneer at this art, infuses every note, tone and rhythm with the same passion expressed in his poetry: words and instruments speak as one voice. Skeptics should listen to LKJ in Dub, an all instrumental collaboration with dubmaster Blackbeard; a breathtaking achievement in experimentalism which compares favorably with work by such recognized dub artists as Augustus Pablo.

On all four albums, Vivian Weathers and Floyd Lawson play what can only be called “lead bass,” often carrying the melody as well as rhythm. Guitarist John Kpiaye contributes unusual and intriguing backup and solo work. The second album introduced more percussion, occasional harmonica by Julio Finn as well as expanded dub effects; but a whole new dimension opened up with the addition of a horn section, including veteran ska/reggae trombonist, Rico. Percussion by Jah Bunny and others crackles and snaps like rifle shots. The recording studio itself is played like an instrument with Blackbeard at the dials and switches, lowering and raising the flame of this musical torch until it sears and scorches everything it touches. LKJ's poetry is of today, and the subtle, imaginative electronic effects make it clear that this rebel music for the space age.

The key to the peculiar emotional effect of LKJ's reggae poetry is his artful fusion of outrage and hope, a characteristic of the best rebellious music (the Clash, Charlie Mingus and Nina Simone come to mind). He exposes the crimes of a system of social injustice and indicts the perpetrators and their agents -- “The SPG (Special Patrol Group) dem a murderer/We can't let them get no furderer/'Cos them kill Blair Peach the teacher/Them kill Blair Peach the dirty bleeders”. But LKJ is more subversive than that: “Him a merciless realist/Him is not defeatist”. The simple truth is that Linton Kwesi Johnson does not just celebrate the age old battle between oppressed and oppressor; he is out to win it. “We're the forces of victory/And we're com in' right through/We're the forces of victory/ Now whatcha gonna do?”

LKJ told one interviewer, “I'm not one of those who believe they're gonna change the world by writing a few poems…  Poetry, which is basically an entertainment, is no substitute for political speech, although maybe my poetry is a little bit more than entertainment, serious entertainment.” Music and art alone cannot overturn social systems, but such change cannot take place without them either, especially if the art is not up to the caliber LKJ's “bass culture”: “For the time is nigh/When passion get high/When the beat just lash/When the wall must smash/The beat will shift/As the culture alter/And oppression shatter.”