The high point of English-Jamaican roots music, a collaboration between “dub poet” Linton Kwesi Johnson and dub producer/musician Dennis “Blackbeard” Bovell. Set to ominous home-grown rhythms, Johnson’s dark declamations portray a bloody London wracked by internecine violence and stabbings, police brutality and racial discrimination, unlawful imprisonment and rife social injustice. The grim visions of Dread Beat An’ Blood would become reality just a few years later, when Brixton’s black community erupted with nights of rioting, looting and arson.