Consumer Guide Album

Linton Kwesi Johnson: Forces of Victory [Mango, 1979]
You have every right to be suspicious of a Jamaican-English intellectual who writes message poems in patois and then sing-speaks them with the support of top reggae professionals. But you're wrong. Politics aside, Johnson has fresh musical gifts--an inside-outside awareness of the inherent musicality of Caribbean English and a rhythmic touch as uncanny as his band's. On this album they're enhanced by insinuating horn charts, even melodies. While some prefer his debut, the bloody Dread Beat an' Blood (Virgin Front Line import), for striking closer to the broken bone of British racism, I actually like the abstractions here better, especially on "Reality Poem." Also, it's a relief to encounter a reggae album that doesn't once refer to Jah. A−