Source: 247 Magazine
Hello radio massive!
Welcome back to another weekly podcast of The Rebel Beat! It was a huge honour to welcome the legendary UK DJ Don Letts as our special guest on the show this week!
It is no exaggeration to say that punk rock would not be the same today were it not for Don Letts. As a staple on the early London punk rock scene, Don was best known as the DJ at the infamous club The Roxy. As a Londoner of Jamaican descent, Don famously brought reggae to the punks, hence starting a movement which bridged continents, genres, and brought together working class youth across racial lines.
As a young man during the tumultuous 70s in the UK, Don was also no stranger to radical street movements against police brutality and racism. It was this photo that was captured of him at the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival Riot that graced the album cover for The Clash’s “Black Market Clash”.
We were thrilled to talk with Don about the scene surrounding this iconic album cover, his comparisons between the riots of England in the 1970s, and present-day riots against police brutality in the USA, cultural appropriation in the punk scene, and the future of political music.
Hope you enjoy this podcast! We’ll be back July 1st for a special anti-colonial anti-Canada mix!
Until then, stay rebel!
Playlist – June 24 2015
Nina Simone – Mississippi goddam
Amiri Baraka – Who will survive America?
Roy Brooks and the Artistic Truth – Relief
dArk mAAt’r – The last question (feat. Malika Tirolien)
The Clash – Bankrobber
Interview with Don Letts
The Clash – White riot
The Sex Pistols – God save the queen
Big Audio Dynamite – Medicine show
Jimmy Cliff – The harder they come
Bob Marley and The Wailers – 400 years
The Equals – Police on my back
Las Cafeteras – Trabajador trabajadora
Buffy Sainte-Marie – Sing our own song
loosestrife – Job hunt
The Ex – Rules
Submission Hold – Purchasing power of the paranoid
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