Don Letts

Don Letts’ reputation has been firmly established in both the film and music world by a substantial body of work from the late ’70s through the ’80s, ’90s and well into the millennium. His work has been exhibited in The Kitchen N.Y.C, The Institute of Contemporary Art, The N.F.T in London and was honored at Brooklyn’s BAM festival and The Milan Film festival. In March 2003 he won a Grammy for his documentary ‘Westway To The World’.

He came to notoriety in the late 70′s as the DJ that single handedly turned a whole generation of punks onto reggae. It was whilst as a d.j at the first punk club ‘The Roxy’ in 1977, that Don adopted the punk D.I.Y ethic and begun to make his first film ‘The Punk Rock Movie’. Shot on Super-8mm it is the only documentary on the U.K punk scene w/ Sex Pistols-The Clash and many others. This led to a period directing over 300 music videos for a diverse range of artists.

At the end of 2007 Don presented ‘Speakers Corner’ in conjunction with the British Arts council. Featuring several spoken word artists, poets and rappers with a musical band in a theatrical setting. The event toured the UK in November-December and was a contemporary response to the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade. In March 2007 SAF Publishing released Don Letts’ autobiography ‘Culture Clash: Dread Meets Punk Rockers’ in hardback.

In 2010 Don was the subject of a documentary ‘Superstonic Sound: The Rebel Dread’ (dir: Raphael Erichsen). The following year, he reformed Big Audio Dynamite with Mick Jones of The Clash for a world tour. He currently presents a weekly radio show on BBC 6 Music called ‘Culture Clash Radio’ and still DJs all around the world.

Hear Don’s radio shows here.