NEW ALBUMS
ANTHONY JOSEPH
The Rich Are Only Defeated When Running For Their Lives HEAVENLY SWEETNESS 8/10
Striking poetry plus simpatico jazz on UK Caribbean writer’s latest.
By Sharon O’Connell
Joseph: “essentiallya Caribbean surrealist poet”
BUNNY BREAD
SHOULD there be any doubt about the primacy of language in Anthony Joseph’s worldview, there’s cast-iron proof of it in the epic “Language (Poem For Anthony McNeill)”, from his fourth solo album. In what’s essentially a secular riff on the beginning of John’s Gospel, he declares, “It is language which calls all things to creation and language is the origin of the world/The word was a great mass of a black star exploding…”
Joseph’s words, meanwhile, don’t so much explode on The Rich Are Only Defeated… as illuminate, recollect, bear witness, question and – crucially – enthral; his poems are energetic yet nuanced flows of richly imaginative language in masterful control, not flashy displays. A Trinidadian who moved to London in 1989, Joseph has made the written and spoken word his life’s work on multiple fronts. He’s released three studio albums with The Spasm Band (whose players included Shabaka Hutchings and Keziah Jones), the first being 2007’s Leggo De Lion. It set Joseph’s recitations of lyrics from his novel The African Origins Of UFOs against a backdrop of jazz, Afrobeat and stripped-down, heavily percussive funk. He’s also recorded three solo albums, published numerous works of poetry and prose and currently teaches creative and life writing at De Montfort University. If one UK figure is currently the ne plus ultra of experimental writing and spoken-word performance rooted in Caribbean identity, it’s surely Joseph.