Standing at the forefront of political poetry since the 1970s, Linton Kwesi Johnson has been fighting neo-fascism, police violence and promoting socialism while putting pen to paper.

For Johnson, only the second living poet to have been published in the Penguin Modern Classics series, writing has always … More

Born OTD in Cuba on 17 October 1934, Rico Rodriguez. His family then moved to Jamaica where he attended the Alpha Boy’s School and he learned to play the trombone from his older schoolmate, Don Drummond.

Behind Jamaica’s musical reverberation lies the unlikely story of a boarding school run by Roman Catholic nuns and a brass … More

Behind Jamaica’s musical reverberation lies the unlikely story of a boarding school run by Roman Catholic nuns and a brass band that helped shape some of the world’s most beloved musical forms. Under a strict disciplinarian regime, ‘wayward ‘boys,’ many orphaned or from deeply troubled backgrounds and hailing from some of the toughest streets in the world, went on to become the backbone of Jamaican jazz, ska, rocksteady, reggae, dancehall, and dub.

Alpha Boys School: Cradle Of Jamaican Music takes a look at the lives of over 40 of these influential musicians … More

Fictional characters mingle with real people in this novel as Thomas Horace Whitmer, writer and proofreader for the music weekly SCUM, a publication of the Society for the Conservation of Underground Music, reminisces on rock and reggae musicians, as well as other interesting characters he has meet over the past fifty years living in the London boroughs of Islington and Hackney

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Spike the Gypsy is a man for all seasons, that is, except for August Bank Holiday weekends. He arrives in London from Kingston, Jamaica at the beginning of the 1950’s & lives in a slum tenement owned by the infamous landlord Peter Rachman at St Stephens Gardens in Ladbroke Grove. The Gypsy knows people from all over London: musicians from jazz clubs, high class society women, politicians for whom he performs small services, drug dealers and whores. He scrapes a living by selling marijuana, shoplifting, cat burglary and intermittent bouts of gambling.

Other prominent characters are the journalist Betty Hayes, who works on the Tottenham & Wood Green Journal; an ingenuous adolescent named Frank … More

To mark the label’s half-centenary in 2018, The Story of Trojan Records is a super deluxe hardback book, telling the definitive history of Trojan. It contains containing hundreds of photographs, record sleeves, labels & archive material, much of it not seen for many years.

The definitive history as the iconic label turns 50. Foreword by Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records.  Launched in London … More

Trojan Records epitomised the punk DIY ethic over a decade before ’76. With a blizzard of individual labels, a marketing strategy that involved selling product out of the backs of vans, the company spearheaded the injection of reggae & ska into the vein of British youth consciousness.

In its first brief six-year incarnation, Trojan produced nearly 30 hit singles, created the legendary compilation series Tighten Up and … More

Earthquake On Orange Street: Buster’s Jamaican Singles Story.

Mind-boggling discography devoted to the Jamaican releases of Prince Buster’s productions from 1961’s Oh Carolina by the Folkes Brothers to … More

Set of Eight postcards, six black & white images taken during the 1980’s dancehall days and two colour cards of flyers including the iconic image from the 4 Aces, Dalston.

Exclusive from Printed Matter Bookshop, Hastings. Available in store & online.

‘Sound Reasoning’ is a unique photographic journey through the Dancehall scene of the 80’s with short excerpts from interviews Anna Arnone did with a whole host of artists from the scene. Coxsone, Saxon, Macka B., Smiley Culture are just a few of the names featured

Benjamin Zephaniah’s introduction to the book is very personal. He illustrates the importance of Sound System culture and just how … More