Poet who expressed female experience through dub and was a powerful performer of her own work
Jean “Binta” Breeze, who has died aged 65 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emerged in the 1980s as the first female dub poet, fusing reggae rhythms and music with the spoken word.
Working in Jamaica and then in Britain, she brought new life, complexity and subtlety to a genre that up to that point had been all male and often aggressively macho. She was also a powerful performer of her own material, so much so that she was often referred to as “a one-woman festival”.
de simple tings of life, mi dear
de simple tings of life
she rocked the rhythms in her chair
brushed a hand across her hair
miles of travel in her stare
de simple tings of life
ah hoe mi corn
and de backache gone
ah plant mi peas
arthritis ease
de simple tings of life