Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah is an English writer and dub poet. Photographed here at Island Studios and at The South African Embassy with Nelson Mandela.

Clement Seymour "Sir Coxsone" Dodd, CD was a Jamaican record producer who was influential in the development of ska and reggae in the 1950s, 1960s and beyond.

Don Letts is a British film director and musician. He is credited as the man who as a DJ at clubs such as The Roxy brought together punk and reggae music.

Jah Stitch is a reggae deejay best known for his recordings in the 1970s.

Henry "Junjo" Lawes was a highly influential record producer, who worked with many reggae, dancehall and dub artists such as Linval Thompson, Scientist, Barrington Levy, Don Carlos, Frankie Paul and most importantly with Yellowman, all for his record label Volcano, which spawned a highly popular sound system of the same name.

Lee 'Scratch' Perry, born in Kingston in 1939, graduated from being a 'selecter' on the Downbeat sound system and a 'fetcher' for Coxsone Dodd to a far more formidable figure following a notoriously acrimonious split with Dodd. Bob Marley would drop into Perry's shop, Upsetter Records, on Charles Street to check out this extrovert figure who delighted in word-play. Some people have attributed the birth of reggae to Scratch alone after he started dabbling with a music pace that made you feel, he said, as though you were stepping in glue. He had an international hit in 1969 with 'Return Of Django' by The Upsetters, his house band. The Upsetters, formerly known as The Hippy Boys, had been formed by bass player Aston 'Family Man' Barrett: when Family Man linked up with Lee Perry, the producer decided to make the bass the lead instrument of this new form of reggae in which he was now working. - ReggaeXplosion. Black heart, black ark. They are searching for a Noah ark. But there was no Noah ark. That is created by a white man because they want to fool somebody. N-O is no and A-H mean pain. So it mean no pain. - Lee Perry

Linton Kwesi Johnson photographed mainly in the Brixton office of the Race Today organisation, with Darcus Howe, his militant spar. Linton set the agenda for the style that became known as Dub Poetry. In Jamaica artists like Oku Onuora and the late Michael Smith similarly took up the mike for the purpose of word-power.

Louise Simone Bennett-Coverley or Miss Lou, OM, OJ, MBE, was a Jamaican poet, folklorist, writer, and educator. These photos are from a London 1983 concert with Linton Kwesi Johnson LKJ

Michael Smith was a Jamaican poet famous for his album "Mi Cyaan Believe It" which includes his poem of the same name. At around 11am on the 17th August 1983, 96 years to the day after the birth of Marcus Garvey, the 28-year-old Jamaican poet Michael Smith fell into an argument with three men in Stony Hill. The previous evening he had heckled the minister of education at a political meeting, and the trio who approached him were JLP activists, angered by his words. In the struggle that followed one of the men struck him with a stone and the blow lead to his death.

I first met Mikey Dread in 1973 when Dread was a pupil at Titchfield School in Port Antonio, where I was teaching. The next time we met was with the Clash at a record company party in London's Camden - Dread was taken up by the group and toured with them, toasting on a couple of numbers. A former radio DJ in Jamaica, who became a recording deejay, he later worked for Radio Bristol in the UK.

Mutabaruka is a Jamaican Rastafarian dub poet. His name comes from the Rwandan language and translates as "one who is always victorious".

Reggae Producers Archive