Starting in the 1970s, it really set off since the Early 1980s.
LKJ
This I more or less knew, intrigued as I became when first hearing Linton Kwesi Johnson, with Bass Culture (1980) his first album I heard, around when I was 15 years old, around 1989. I liked reggae by then, even had fallen in love with it. My passion for poetry, however, was more temperate, though not absent. I liked playing with words, at times. I had some interest in literary writings (novels, even experimental ones), liked writing essays, and even tried to write some poems as well. I soon started writing song lyrics - related to poetry - as well, just liking the prospect of “cool” songs with good lyrics.
BOOKWORM
I had a “bookworm” period in my life, starting in my teens, but which slowly diminished after I became 30. I still read a lot (inc. social sciences), nonfiction, but less fiction. I guess I sought: “reality”, in some sense, and outside of the house. A busy pace, which left behind the timeless and solitary exploring in my youth of poems in books, Federico García Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Ben Okri, or less known ones. I read their poems too, but focused now more on actual human/social interaction.
So, although with less intensity, literary reading and writing remained an interest of mine.
I therefore also listen to lyrics of Dub Poets like, comparing with other poems I know, from different cultures.
VOCAL
First of all, though, I noticed the “flow” of the lyrics in Dub Poets, differing from Jamaican “Toasting” vocals. The styles can have similarities, but Toasting “rides” a riddim/beat more rhythmically – the precursor of Rap - , while Dub Poets rather “command” the riddim/beat.
Dub Poetry vocals - especially of the LKJ school - is often more like "talking" - with intonation and emphasis - than Toasting, which has a melodic musicality in it, even if not full singing as in other Reggae subgenres. The "soul" found in some good Reggae singing, is therefore not so much found in Dub Poetry, though emotions and "soul" can still be expressed by changing tempo, way of declamation, or screams and cries.
Crucially, Dub Poetry songs usually have each their own, original music (riddim/beat), not pre-set riddims. Sometimes, such an older Studio One or Channel One Reggae riddim echoes in dub poetry songs, even if newly composed. This makes it artistically more free or experimental.
The vocal difference of Dub poets with Toasting/Chatting is interesting, I think. What makes the flow different? Analyzing it, I can resume it as “theatricality”, but also as “sublimation” of themes. That’s a key difference between poetry – as genre – and “prose”. The latter “tells stories” or “explains literally”, whereas poetry sublimates earthly matters into philosophical, even spiritual, multi-interpretable realms. It does this – crucially – through meter, rhythm, and intonation (and rhyme). Also emphasizing specific words, slowly.
Regarding these techniques, indeed Dub Poetry is more “poetry” than toasting, the latter being more “flowing”, i.e. direct and rhythmically adapted to the music. More flowing, like “stories”.
OKU ONUORA
Jamaican Oku Onuora, who lived an eventful life, including prison time, was one of the first Dub Poets in Jamaica, in the 1970s. His 1979 “Reflections In Red” single became known as the first Dub Poetry song, pioneering the genre in a sense.
Oku Onuora became thus known as “father” of Dub Poetry. He was followed by people like Mbala, Jean Binta Breeze (the first woman, they say), Mutabaruka, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Michael Smith, soon after following in by the early 1980s, and further shaping, the tradition. It is kept alive by later, next-generation self-described Dub Poets like Ras Takura.
Oku Onuora’s vocal style on Reflections In Red included emphasis and slower pronunciation of significant words, and intonation speed changes. Such techniques are found not so much in Toasting or current dancehall Chatting, which is after all more bound to the musical rhythm, the steady “flow”. Onuora’s singing style certainly seemed to have influenced later Dub poets. The fact that Jamaican patois was used as language remained also significant to emphasize.
Such “flowing”, Toasting-like aspects from other Reggae/Dancehall are of course not absent in Dub Poetry vocals. Rather, they interrelate with these more “poetic” intonations and slowed down – often Patois - emphasis on words/terms.
PROTEST
Important is also to emphasize that "social protest" is the essence of Dub Poetry, as the 1979 Reflections In Red song by Oku Onuora, originating the genre, illustrates. Dub Poetry deals almost by definition with social commentary. More personal "love" or "romantic" themes are not absent - LKJ's Elaine, for instance -, but are the exception rather than the rule. Usually, there is a layer of social comment, making the message important, and thus (vocal) emphasis on certain terms and their connotations.
This of course has precedents in other "socially engaged" poetry, also among Black poets in the US, such as notably the Last Poets (started in 1968, during the civil rights movement), Gil Scott-Heron (of part-Jamaican descent) and others. These must have influenced Dub Poetry in Jamaica, as it would later conscious hip-hop.
Some "classic" works from these, include the Last Poets' Blessed Are Those Who Struggle (1977), and even earlier: Gil Scott-Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televized (1971). Mutabaruka calls the latter, Scott-Heron's "signature poem", like his own Dis Poem. He admits being influenced by it.
Oku Onuora, born Orlando Wong (he is of part-Chinese descent), the "father of dub poetry", began writing poetry in 1971 (deemed already subversive by prison authorities), so a direct relation with the Last Poets and him, seems not clear, though they stand in the same tradition of Black Power poetry. A tradition that goes back to Jamaican Marcus Garvey, who wrote quite some poetry too, using thus rhythm and meter, analogues, metaphor, layers, and rhyme, more than in his "prose", for a similar message of Black upliftment, often with a psychological element too.
There are thus multiple sources, feeding into what would be Dub Poetry, as it got mixed with Reggae music.
The point of view of dub poetry, when discussing social ills, is thus from the downtrodden, and against oppression and discrimination. It has a direct relation to the Black Power and Garvey-ite movement, of which the Rastafari movement after all is a part.
DUB
For a time, I found the term “Dub Poetry” somewhat puzzling. Apparently, early Dub Poet Oku Onuora coined this term as such. It was at first not entirely clear to me if it was vocalizing on existing Dub Reggae songs: say King Tubby-like Dub versions of Reggae songs, with echo, reverb and other added effects. Dub is also an interesting art form, combining thus with the art of Poetry sung/chatted in a musical way. Something like that.
Turns out that the term Dub Poetry is even more interesting in significance, in that the relationship between the music and the vocals is in the case of Dub Poetry is more communicative and in that sense “equal”, with the Dub Poet in part “commanding” the music to fit the poet/lyrical flow. This is much less the case with modern Dancehall or New Roots on set Riddims. Good, groovy Riddims mostly, with in the case of Jamaican riddims also exhibiting quality musicianship, but set, and hardly adaptable by vocalists on them..
This means different vocalists on the same Riddim by necessity adapt to fit the flow, drum, and chord structure of the riddim. Every artist still has its own original voice and style of singing/toasting, of course, but within a framework. Dub Poetry is in that sense freer and more experimental. Yet, not more “improvising”, as Dub Poets tend to be written on forehand. Many Toasting New Roots songs of course also, but in some Dancehalls, with some Sound Systems, improvising on the spot on a certain Riddim played, is common, less dependent on a “written text” than Dub Poetry.
UK-based dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson worked together with also UK-based Dennis Bovell for making Riddims with each song, whereas a Dub Poet like Mutabaruka worked together with veteran Jamaican musicians like Chinna Smith to make appropriate riddims with his Dub Poetry songs.
Bovell seemed to use and favour more Dub effects (echo, reverb, a.o.).
MESSAGE
When I tried to find out more about Dub Poetry in my teenage years, liking some songs of Linton Kwesi Johnson, I was partly misinformed by a Reggae author in the Netherlands, and another English one. In a “pop encyclopedia” Linton Kwesi Johnson was described as “anti-Rasta”, preferring nonspiritual social comment. Later statements by Kwesi Johnson himself contradicted this. He said he maybe was not really Rasta, but respected the Rastafari movement and its value for Blacks and Black power. Being a non-Rasta is something else than being “anti-Rasta”, this particular author (Dutch or English) did not seem to understand.
In his lyrics, Johnson chose, though, indeed a broader, social comment approach, with a Black power influence.
Who was more “really” Rasta, was the mentioned dub poetry pioneer Oku Onuora, as well as Mutabaruka, Jean Binta Breeze, Benjamin Zephaniah and later dub poets. Dub Poetry’s connection with the Rastafari movement seems therefore firm, but in a free way.
MUTABARUKA
Mutabaruka, who is also a social commentator with his much-listened radio broadcasts from Jamaica (Stepping Razor), identifies as a Rasta, but remains a free thinker, going against what he sees as common misconceptions or orthodoxies within Rastafari. He criticizes for example the connection of Rastafari to Christianity and Christ, preferring a focus of original African culture, and wisdom derived from natural living, instead of written dogmatic texts. The latter being especially problematic, due to the misuse of Christianity and the Bible by the European powers for their colonialism and slavery.
Mutabaruka foregrounds sub-Saharan African culture, so he neither got enamored with Islam instead of Christianity, as the Nation of Islam adherents among some Blacks in the US. He deplored that in some parts of Black Africa, Arab names replaced original African (e.g. Mande/Mandinga) names of individuals: so Mohammed, Hassan, or Abdul, - or adapted, such as Alieu (Ali) - instead of Mory or Sékou, for instance.
The kind of free thinking that can be expressed well through a medium like Dub Poetry – with some vocal “freedom” to emphasize slowly as said - , thereby exploring certain specific themes or "concepts" more analytically and poetically, so to speak.
Mutabaruka indeed uses the Dub Poetry genre well for this, including also his comments on social and political affairs, on a variety of his songs. On songs like Whiteman Country, Great Kings of Africa, Every Time I Hear the Sound, De System, or Junk Food, Mutabaruka uses the “slow emphasis” vocally, as well as repetition, and declamatory intonation, fit on riddims, or elsewhere foregrounding poetic declamation even with more experimental Afro-folk music (song Dance) or rock/reggae (Famine Injection), a bit outside the Reggae musical frame.
In LKJ’s, Mutabaruka’s, or other Dub Poets works (like of Benjamin Zephaniah) “abstract” or “surreal” imagery is hardly to be found, though there is symbolism. Dub poetics deal with “reality”, giving voice to the downtrodden, mostly from a Rasta perspective. This through description and protest, but also often “sketches” from life, given symbolical function.
MAGIC AND SURREAL
Rhythm and meter is however certainly there in Dub Poetry, used for intonation, and emphasizing words. “Sublimation” of literal meaning, as a function of poetry, but kept in the case of most Dub Poetry quite concrete and about real life, except with certain love songs that also exist in Dub poetry.
The only artist in Jamaican culture representing, perhaps, a surrealist or abstract “poetry” school was Lee “Scratch” Perry. Here and there, in Perry’s body of work one finds Dub Poet-like songs, with him talking, but mostly Perry wanted to sing his songs. This despite initial negative doubts about Perry’s singing ability of producer Coxsone Dodd, at Studio One.
Later, artists like Eek-A-Mouse, Elephant Man, or Ward 21 brought some “surreal” absurdity – to degrees – to Reggae lyrics, that however mostly remained prosaic and slightly poetic.
PERFORMANCE POETRY
Dub Poetry is categorized by some also as “performance poetry”, which is a bit simplistic. At the very least it points at the tight connection with the music, and some “theatricality” as I called it, but they’re still written poems, mixed with music for a specific art work, after all recorded.
In reality, I think other Reggae (Roots, vocals, toasting, even Dancehall) is more “performance poetry”, especially since there are very much good, “deeper” lyrics about different aspects of life: far beyond simply put personal grievances: especially in Rastafari-influenced Reggae, there are spiritual truths shared, and social or political comment tends to be broad, dealing with the “system” and humanity as a whole. It is prosaic, for sure, but with enough poetic elements.
POETICS
Dub Poetry now, I think emphasizes “poetic” aspects more: word play and emphasis, intonation, layered and (much less) indirect meanings. There are certainly some poetic, deeper “layers” in Dub Poetry lyrics, but “indirect meanings” are not the forte of Jamaican lyrics, arguably. In fact, “indirect messaging” is only common in parts of the world, in some, usually hierarchic, class-based cultures: it is not a universal human trait, as cultural anthropologists concluded.
Northern Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world are most indirect, followed by some stricter Islamic and Hindu cultures, whereas cultural regions like Latin America, most of less-industrialized Southern and Eastern Europe (rural parts more), common folk in East Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, have a place for “magic”, but are overall straight-forward, perhaps for not having to defend a privileged position of dubious origins: the curse of Anglo-Saxon, and wider “White/Euro” global dominance..
Some of this “subtle” Anglo-Saxon influence reached Jamaica, as an English-speaking former British colony, but mostly the “poetics” in Dub Poetry center – in my experience listening to it – more on “symbolic” and playful – sometimes metaphoric - descriptions and vivid, fine – but realistic! - imagery, aided by rhythm and musicality (sometimes experimental/dub-wise sonically), and emphasize messages, rather than vagueness or indirectness.
TO CONCLUDE
All this combined, is what make Dub Poetry unique as an art form: within Reggae and Jamaican music, and within the world.
The difference with Toasting (U Roy, I Roy, Big Youth a.o.), message "chanters" like Prince Fari, or even current New Roots chatting by people like Capleton, Sizzla, or Junior Kelly is not always clear-cut – especially with “free” and “varying” vocals - , but cannot be otherwise, since they are fed by the same musical tradition of rhythmic speech, with African origins. They probably also influenced each other, resulting in a different way to express a social, sometimes personal, message, whether poetic or prosaic. Whether bound to a riddim/beat, or not.
You almost could conclude that what King Tubby is to Dub (the originator), Oku Onuora with the first ground-breaking Dub Poetry song Reflections In Red is to Dub Poetry, also as originator. Onuora even created an own vocal style of “slow emphasis” and heavy declamation, that more or less influenced later Dub Poets. These later Dub Poets further shaped the genre with own peculiarities.
In another, cultural sense, it has its roots in Jamaican folk speech, and in rhythmic vocal styles, going back to folk styles like Mento, and before. Even further back: to the African "griot" or "jeli" tradition of musical story tellers travelling around and through villages and communities, discussing current affairs and issues, through poems or stories on music.
Lyrically, definitely, Dub Poetry can be seen as part of the Black Power movement.
