This language of dub
could be bodies mapping
memory

Tuned/re/tune/transmission to a…
mystic / sound vibration

‘Do you remember the days of slavery’

Ancestral frequency/ /Wolof…Ibo…Akan
dip and fall-back
of Kumina

Ground-ation [Zion/ revival songs] swelling earth
dub-dub/bass-bass-bass

sanctified callus hands beating bingy
drums hearticle vibrations
to chant down
Babylon’s throne
steppers/ova rock-stone
cold ground /blues
tuff gong/retention/embodiment of
dreams trodding back/back to
Africa
levitate through craft stacked
heavy weight/ speaker box
wiring de gut /with purpose
to raise de dead /wake up
de living

Dis reggae/dis iration
sound waves…
of redemption

say! I and I /deh yah
rewinding
to come back
with melodic/heartbeat ‘n’ radical riddims
to denounce/ all rude bwoy,
dig a burial ground
fe red eye/tin-pan
drum-pan/dibby-dibby
heng-pan-nail/leg-go-beast
sound man/ who come/fe test
test/test dis yah
dub-dub/bass-bass-bass

Amplify
Jah Shaka – Wasiffa – Maverick
deep dub-tion waves
moving cool n deadly, wid
top notch riddims /turn table precision
coin weight needle
on liquid vinyl crisp n crackle of ‘Culture dubplate

‘wat a liiv an bamba yeah’

when clash
cork wid grin n skrew face
the slow burn of boastfulness

Man and man Skankin’ up sweat ‘n’ sweet sensi
and special brew heat/liberate
dub-dub/bass-bass-bass

Midnight skin front man selecta
track Jah natty
chatting/ on de mix me down
chanting/chanting/chanting

Wa-dada – ooh-ooh Wa-dada

Sound vibration
tuned/re/tune this transmission

Khadijah Ibrahiim

Khadijah Ibrahiim Hailed as one of Yorkshire’s most prolific poets by the BBC, Khadijah Ibrahiim
was born in Leeds of Jamaican parentage. Educated at the University of
Leeds, she is a literary activist, theatre maker and published writer, who
combines interdisciplinary art forms to re-imagine poetry as performance
theatre. Her work appears in university journals and poetry anthologies.
Her collection Another Crossing was published by Peepal Tree Press in
2014. Khadijah has performed and produced art programmes in the USA,
Caribbean, Africa and Asia. In 2010, she was writer-in-residence for El Gouna
writes, Egypt. In the same year, she travelled to South Africa as part of the
Verbalized tour run by the British Council and Sustained Theatre.

In 2017, she was shortlisted for the Jerwood Compton Fellowship,
and in 2018, for Sue Ryder ‘Yorkshire Woman of the Year’ for her contribution to the arts. She is the Artistic Director of Leeds Young Authors, and
Executive Producer of the award-winning documentary, We Are Poets.

In 2017, she was creative associate for the theatre production Ode To Leeds
at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Khadijah was part of Collections in Verse,
a project that commissions poets to create new work inspired by British
Library exhibitions and local histories, stories and experiences. She is an
associate artist with the Geraldine Connor Foundation, and the coordinator
for Inscribe writers’ development programme for Peepal Tree Press. Her
recently commissioned work includes a contribution to Sorrel and Black
Cake: A Windrush Story; and Dead and Wake, part of the Connecting Voices
collaboration between Opera North and Leeds Playhouse.

© Khadijah Ibrahiim