DJ, filmmaker, band supervisor, trend icon, musician, social butterfly… Don Letts is a captivating and complex man, a extremely appropriate topic for a documentary. This potted historical past of a life, which solely sometimes veers into hagiography — it’s narrated and guided by the person himself via occasional puffs of a joint — remembers an electrical time in music, trend, politics and artwork.
Letts was born in London in 1956, and the movie takes care to position him in that context: as one facet of London witnessed the Swinging ’60s, one other facet was beneath assault from a racist police pressure and Enoch Powell’s inflammatory ‘Rivers Of Blood’ speech. Serving as a useful cousin to Steve McQueen’s Small Axe collection, the movie sells the vibrancy of Brixton’s Railton Street: the boombox tradition, the rise of reggae, and in the midst of all of it, the gregarious, nearly quixotically formidable Letts.
Insurgent Dread really finds its rhythm when it evokes an incandescent period of British tradition.
The person has evidently loved a exceptional life, as usually discovering himself in the precise place on the proper time (he labored within the West London store of a pre-fame Vivienne Westwood) as speeding in the direction of the precise place with vigour (he virtually forces a friendship with Bob Marley). By far essentially the most exceptional ingredient of his story is the cultural alternate he facilitated within the Seventies — the unlikely cross-pollination of reggae and punk, two scenes which may appear diametrically opposed. Enriched by Letts’ personal footage (his entrepreneurial drive led him to documenting his life at a time when home-video cameras had been prohibitively costly), there’s gold-dust footage of Johnny Rotten rubbing shoulders with Rastas at a South London occasion.
The latter half of the movie will get considerably misplaced within the weeds, shedding focus when Letts strikes to New York; it veers into for-fans-only territory with its chronicling of Massive Audio Dynamite, his band with The Conflict’s Mick Jones. And given Letts’ intimate involvement within the movie (he’s an government producer, in addition to its largest voice), the considerably much less virtuous chapters of his private life are given brief shrift. However Insurgent Dread really finds its rhythm when it evokes an incandescent period of British tradition; and communicates {that a} life spent chasing the following nice tune is a life properly lived. Or, as Letts places it, in one among his many drops of pearly knowledge: “Have a great time, look good, and check out your best possible to not be a cunt.”
