Books 5

Inglan Is A Bitch Linton Kwesi Johnson Launches Reggae and Jazz Classics series - LKJ Music

Britain's foremost reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson has embarked on an ambitious publishing project with the first CD-ROMs in a series featuring unsung musical heroes.

Tactics
Dennis Bovell. Shows off Bovell's talents and guest artists include Rico Rodriguez and Eddie Thornton. Elle magazine said: "This is assured, polished reggae from a master producer and musician."

Bushfire
Steve Gregory. First solo album from a less well-known British pop music icon. This acid/jazz/reggae fusion set highlights Steve Gregory's talents as a flautist and saxophonist.

Tings An' Times
Linton Kwesi Johnson. Is a best-selling album from the man himself. Tracks include De Anfinish Revalueshan about the continuing quest for freedom and Mi Revalueshanary Fren about political changes in the 1990s.

Johnson's Inglan Is A Bitch, published in 1980, is regarded as the defining collection of reggae poetry. The poet relates the inequalities of black British life with a poetic craft that beats out rhythmical bass lines.

The Johnson-Bovell Dub Band collaboration appears Thursday November 18 at Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, London SE1 8XX.

Contact details
LKJ Music
P.O.Box 623
Herne Hill
London SE24 0LS
Tel/Fax: 44-(0) 171 738 7647
E-mail lkj@cwcom.net

Code, the style magazine for men of color. Premier issue July 1999.

Editorial director Quincy Troupe, poet and biographer of trumpeter Miles Davis, richly illustrates the "rebirth of cool". Fifty pages of designer style features include Oswald Boateng and Shaka King among the fashion greats. Popular movie actor Samuel L. Jackson reflects on star wars; top model Tyra Banks "wears your pants"; and television director Paris Barclay talks about his award-winning program NY PD. Haitian-born Marc Baptiste and Kwaku Alston are among the photographers displayed.

Code's first issue is very much a writers work as well. Mel Donalson, author of An Anthology of African-American Literature, pens a poignant essay Fathers and Sons in honour of his dad. Troupe's upcoming work includes Miles and Me: A Memoir of Miles Davis (University of California Press 2000) and book of his poems Choruses (St Martins Press).

In Code, Troupe and his colleagues are paying tribute to the black man's imprint on the culture code of America, and by extension to Africa, the Caribbean, and the western world. The contemporary exponent of this "black man equals style" concept, with its overtones of the Twenties Harlem renaissance, is Lloyd Brown's Men of Color: Fashion. History. Fundamentals. (Artisan 1998). The book traces a unique connection between style and Black American iconic personalities, mainly musicians such as Dizzy, Miles, Duke and Cab Calloway. Think of dancer singer, actor and impressionist Sammy Davis Jr. for example.

But the paeans to black style in Code are flawed. The tributes are as falsely based as they are in similar glossy British and French magazines targeted to black males (see reviews of Untold in the Archives). Black Style does not extend Black Power in the important domains of black life. Code, and its richly displayed ads for top-class cars, drinks, jewellery, and credit card spending, seems more a code word for conspicuous consumption - a gratuitous show of apparent wealth and "hip" taste in a sea of black despond.

Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia : Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America. By Winston James. Verso May 1998.

Available for $18.90 at www.amazon.com. This book tells of the impact of Caribbean migration to the United States. Marcus Garvey, Claude McKay, Claudia Jones, C.L.R. James, Stokely Carmichael, Louis Farrakhan -- are part of the roster of immigrants from the Caribbean who have made a profound impact on the development of radical politics in the U, S. In this illustrated work, James examines the push and pull factors of migration - and how the societies the immigrants left shaped their perceptions of the land to which they traveled. Winston James explores the interconnections between the Cuban independence struggle, Puerto Rican nationalism, Afro-American feminism, and black Communism in the first turbulent decades of the twentieth century. He also provides fascinating insights into the impact of Puerto Rican radicalism in New York City and recounts the remarkable story of Afro-Cuban radicalism in Florida. About the Author: Winston James teaches history at Columbia University, New York. His previous books include Inside Babylon: The Caribbean Diaspora in Britain, edited with Clive Harris; and A Fierce Hatred of Injustice: Claude McKay's Jamaican Poetry of Rebellion, also from Verso.