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Desmond Faada Johnson
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Out of 22 votes - Similar Artists: Linton Kwesi Johnson, RuffCutt Band, Barrington Levy
Out of 22 votes
- Location: London, United Kingdom
- Genre: Reggae » Dub Poetry
Editor's review
This Jamaican expat (a resident of London since the early '80s) is the dub poet at the front of PUCKO Music. That's People's United for the Cause of Knowledge and Overstanding, and its project of properly tracing history and identity has a worthy leader i
Biography
Pucko Music is a series of poems infused with reggae music, written from a new and powerful poetic form called "Cuss Poems". The Album is charged with the intensity of language; Nation Language. Desmond Faada Johnson uses powerful patters of rhyme and poetic forms to deliver an excellent album of poetry and music. Pucko Music is influence by the oratory and potency of the Pocomina Churches in Jamaica.
Most of the poems featured on Pucko Music were first published in Desmond FAADA Johnson's 1984 collection of Poetry – Deadly Ending Season and featured in The Story of English (Chapter 9) – BBC TV programme that Desmond FAADA Johnson presented. Pucko Poetry, was first broadcast on BBC TV "Here and Now" and published in PUCKO POETRY.
"My writing is a compulsion. A fight with forces and a fight against forces to produce language and poetry that relish in the depth and eternal soul of the African. In my world, music is dominant. It is the guttural chants of the Drums, passion and the potent sounds of the mighty singers wailing to vibes of love, struggle, courage and righteousness. The poems were conceived in the vestibule of a peoples yearning for sound and power, empowering us beyond politics and the folly of Post Colonial life, with its distress and servitude lifestyles."
PUCKO MUSIC is a moment in time, a session, a recording and a performance, with the RuffCutt Band. With Anthony "Dashi" Thomas, as the Griot, Kenton "Fish" Brown as the Dub Master, Carlton "Bubblers" Oglivie as the Musical Professor, Tony "Crucial" Phillips as the Vibes Master and Desmond FAADA Johnson as the Poet. Influenced by popular Reggae and Dancehall anthems, PUCKO MUSIC seeks to interpret the music of poetry, through the potent sounds of Reggae Music. The poems are performed with a voice amplified with the guttural sounds of the Griots, "speaking from a standpoint of age 'perience", focusing on history, contemporary platitudes that marginalized a people, echoing the call for "betterment, peace and love", warning of the danger if a "tradition slip into oblivion", joining the chorus of voices chanting down Babylon, seeing hope and fortitude, in a world of Experiences.
