Linton Kwesi Johnson – ‘Fite Dem Back’

Originally from Jamaica, Linton Kwesi Johnson has become as synonymous with South London, as the twin beacons of the Crystal Palace TV transmitting station. This is not only due to him having taken residence in Brixton but rather that he spoke explicitly of the politics blacks in his adopted home. On ‘Fite Dem Back’ from 1979’s Forces Of Victory, for instance, he affects a distinctive London parlance at a time when paradoxically, UK Reggae artists were doing the exact opposite. Tellingly, Steel Pulse released the equally politically charged Handsworth Revolution featuring its own anti racist hymn titled ‘Ku Klux Klan’ rather than National Front a year before. This might account for Johnson, like his UK born black contemporaries, photographer Dennis Morris; DJ/Musician Don Letts and his regular collaborator Dennis Bovell, being seen as much if not more, an icon of punk as reggae. More likely it’s due to the fact that ‘Fite Dem Back’ has a chorus more akin to polemically fuelled crust bands like Discharge or Crisis than it did with contemporaneous anti-fascist reggae cuts such as Blazing Sons’ ‘Chant Down The National Front’ or Steel Pulse’s ‘Jah Pickney’. It’s more truly punk in fact than American hardcore band Poison Idea’s backwardly ignorant 1983 song ‘I Hate Reggae’ could ever hope to be.
Tony F Wilson

From LKJ's second (but first proper solo) album Forces Of Victory, ‘Fite Dem Back’ is poetic encouragement to mobilise against fascist attacks on minorities – a regular reality at the time of its 1979 release. More upbeat with a regular verse-chorus-verse song structure in comparison to the downbeat dread menace of other LKJ dub poetry classics like ‘Street 66’ and the reggae-blues of Sonny's ‘Lettah’. Dennis Bovell also counters the violent lyrical content with a relatively sunnier composition, making this a righteous festival singalong.
Ben Durutti