Bass Culture

Bass Culture, LKJ's third album, featured an iron-clad set of rhythm tracks delivered, as always, by a sizzling session group from the UK underground, corralled by Johnson's production and the heavyweight mixing and arranging skills of Dennis Bovell. On "Reggae Sounds," Johnson examined the music as a confirmation of identity, and saw it as a signpost towards an inevitable uprising, a cultural expression of people fighting to be free.

"Two Sides Of Silence" found LKJ within a wired free jazz mindscape, explaining why a quiet soul and peace were unattainable in the face of injustice. "Street 66" told of a raid on a house party where revelers were ready to meet violence with violence. This was no fantasy: reggae dances were frequently broken up by police, batons drawn. After one such invasion, Dennis Bovell suffered a spell in jail on charges later dismissed on appeal.

By way of light relief, though delivered without a smirk, "Loraine" offered a tale of unrequited love with the smitten narrator torn to shreds by a girl's sarcastic tongue. "Inglan Is A Bitch" casts Johnson as a 55-year-old who came to Britain to work but never felt accepted or secure. "Di Black Petty Booshwah" slammed a "rich and switch" mentality, and "Reggae Fi Peach" noted the creeping fascism Jonson saw embodied in the death of New Zealander Blair Peach, killed by the police at the Southall uprising.