Lillian Allen | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | 5 April 1951 Kingston, Jamaica |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) |
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| Instrument(s) | Vocals |
| Years active | 1969–present |
| Labels | Verse to Vinyl |
| Website | www |
Lillian Allen (born 5 April 1951) is a Canadian dub poet, reggae musician, writer and Juno Award winner. [1]
Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, she left that country in 1969, first moving to New York City, where she studied English at the City University of New York. [2] She lived for a time in Kitchener, Ontario, before settling in Toronto, where she continued her education at York University, gaining a B.A. degree. [3] After meeting Oku Onuora in Cuba in 1978, she began working in dub poetry. [2] She released her first recording, Dub Poet: The Poetry of Lillian Allen, in 1983.[ citation needed ]
Allen won the Juno Award for Best Reggae/Calypso Album for Revolutionary Tea Party in 1986 and Conditions Critical in 1988. [3]
In 1990, she collaborated on the one-off single "Can't Repress the Cause", a plea for greater inclusion of hip-hop music in the Canadian music scene, with Dance Appeal, a supergroup of Toronto-area musicians that included Devon, Maestro Fresh Wes, Dream Warriors, B-Kool, Michie Mee, Eria Fachin, HDV, Dionne, Thando Hyman, Carla Marshall, Messenjah, Jillian Mendez, Lorraine Scott, Lorraine Segato, Self Defense, Leroy Sibbles, Zama and Thyron Lee White. [4] Two years later, she organized a collective of artists, including Ahdri Zhina Mandiela and Afua Cooper, prompting Toronto's First International Dub Poetry Festival. [5] : 103
In 2006, Allen and her work were the subject of an episode of the television series Heart of a Poet , produced by Canadian filmmaker Maureen Judge. She is a Faculty of Liberal Studies Professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, where she teaches creative writing. She recently held the distinction of being the first Canada Council Writer-in-Residence for Queen's University's Department of English. Allen also co-produced and co-directed Blak Wi Blakkk, a 1991 documentary about the Jamaican dub poet Mutabaruka. [3]
In 2023, Allen was named to a three-year term as Poet Laureate of Toronto. [6]
Dub poetry is a form of performance poetry of Jamaican origin, which evolved out of dub music in Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1970s, as well as in London, England, and Toronto, Canada, cities which have large populations of Caribbean immigrants. The term "Dub Poetry" was coined by Dub artist Linton Kwesi Johnson in 1976, and further popularized by artist Oku Onoura, which consists of spoken word over reggae rhythms, originally found on the backing or "version" side of a 12 or 7 inch vinyl record.
Devon Martin, better known mononymously as Devon, is a Canadian rapper who rose to prominence in 1990 for his song titled "Mr. Metro", a controversial single about police racism. "Mr. Metro" subsequently became an alias of the artist.
Michelle McCullock, better known by her stage name Michie Mee, is a Canadian rapper and actress. Canada's first notable female MC, she is considered a national hip-hop pioneer.
d’bi.young anitafrika is a Jamaican-Canadian feminist dub poet, activist, and singer for the band D’bi and the 333. Their work includes theatrical performances, four published collections of poetry, twelve plays, and seven albums.
Dr. Afua Ava Pamela Cooper is a Jamaican-born Canadian historian. As a historian, "she has taught Caribbean cultural studies, history, women's studies and Black studies at Ryerson and York universities, at the University of Toronto and at Dalhousie University." She is also an author and dub poet who as of 2018, has published five volumes of poetry.
Olive Marjorie Senior is a Jamaican poet, novelist, short story and non-fiction writer based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was awarded the Musgrave Gold Medal in 2005 by the Institute of Jamaica for her contributions to literature. Senior was appointed Poet Laureate of Jamaica in 2021.
Kwame Senu Neville Dawes is a Ghanaian poet, actor, editor, critic, musician, and former Louis Frye Scudder Professor of Liberal Arts at the University of South Carolina. He is now Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and editor-in-chief at Prairie Schooner magazine.
Lorna Gaye Goodison CD is a Jamaican poet, essayist and memoirist, a leading West Indian writer, whose career spans four decades. She is now Professor Emerita, English Language and Literature/Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, previously serving as the Lemuel A. Johnson Professor of English and African and Afroamerican Studies. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Jamaica in 2017, serving in the role until 2020.
Leroy Sibbles is a Jamaican reggae musician and producer. He was the lead singer for The Heptones in the 1960s and 1970s.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Caribbean music in Canada has existed since the early 1920s, becoming increasingly prominent after the 1960s as Caribbean immigration to Canada increased. Anglo-Caribbean genres such as reggae, soca and calypso are especially prominent in English Canada, while French Caribbean genres such as cadence-lypso, zouk and konpa are more prominent in Quebec.
Messenjah is a Canadian-based reggae group that flourished to become one of the most successful and popular reggae groups in the history of Canadian music.
Andru Branch is a Canadian reggae musician. He is the lead singer-songwriter of the reggae band Andru Branch & Halfway Tree. He was nominated for a Juno Award for his debut 1998 album What If I Told You.
Lauri Conger is notable primarily as the keyboardist and one of the principal co-writers of most of the songs of The Parachute Club.
William Taylor Bryans was a Canadian percussionist, songwriter, music producer and DJ, known as one of the founders of The Parachute Club, among other accomplishments in music. As a producer, he worked on projects for artists as diverse as Dutch Mason, Raffi, Lillian Allen and the Downchild Blues Band. He was born in Montreal, but spent most of his adult life in Toronto, and was particularly supportive of world music as both a promoter and publicist, focusing on bringing Caribbean, Cuban and Latin American music to a wider audience.
Jay Douglas is a Canadian musician, based in Toronto. He is a long-time member of the Toronto music scene.
Clifton Joseph is a Canadian dub poet. He is most noted for his 1989 album Oral/Trans/Missions, from which the song "Chuckie Prophesy" was a shortlisted Juno Award finalist for Best Reggae Recording at the Juno Awards of 1990.
Shernette Amoy Evans, known by the stage name Ammoye, is a Jamaican-Canadian reggae musician, most noted as a six-time Juno Award nominee for Reggae Recording of the Year.
Revolutionary Tea Party is an album by the Canadian musician Lillian Allen, released in 1986. It won a Juno Award for Best Reggae/Calypso Recording at the Juno Awards of 1986. The album sold around 5,000 copies in its first year of release. Allen subsequently named her band the Revolutionary Tea Party Band. The album was distributed in the U.S. by Holly Near's Redwood Records.
Cherry Natural is a Jamaican dub poet, author, motivational speaker and self-defense instructor. She has published three books of poetry and in received the Mutabaruka Award for Best Spoken Word Poet at the International Reggae & World Music Awards in 2019.
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