Writer and poet Benjamin Zephaniah dies aged 65 - BBC News
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00:00 true pioneer and innovator.
00:02 Well, remember this.
00:03 - I used to think nurses were women.
00:06 I used to think police were men.
00:09 I used to think poets were boring
00:11 until I became one of them.
00:13 - Fabulous stuff.
00:16 Let's talk now to the host of BBC Radio 1 Extra's talk show,
00:20 One Extra Talks, Richie Brave,
00:22 who joins me live on the programme.
00:24 Richie, thank you for being here.
00:26 Just in terms of your initial reaction,
00:29 because I know you met him, your work, his work,
00:33 so often entwined, didn't they?
00:35 - Yeah, I mean, such an honour to be here
00:38 and speak about one of the giants from our community.
00:41 I mean, Benjamin Zephaniah was an uncle to so many of us,
00:45 and I had the pleasure of meeting him
00:46 when I was a small child.
00:48 So this speaks to his activism work and community focus.
00:51 He came and did performances for us
00:53 in South London as children,
00:55 and I also met him at several events as an adult,
00:57 and he always had time to stop and speak to people.
01:00 He was just such a ball of love.
01:02 - It's so interesting watching you and listening to you,
01:05 because as you were starting that,
01:07 you were smiling because you were remembering him.
01:10 And I heard Lem Cisse, the great poet,
01:13 he was on Radio 4 earlier, exactly the same thing with him.
01:18 I mean, he was saying that,
01:20 Lem Cisse was describing how contrary he was,
01:24 an activist, how loving, how angry.
01:28 Do you think those were some of the reasons
01:30 he cut through, made such an impact?
01:34 - I mean, absolutely.
01:35 What's so important to remember,
01:37 like you said, he wasn't just a poet.
01:38 He was a proud Rasta man.
01:40 He was a pioneer.
01:42 He was a symbol of black resistance
01:43 for a lot of black British people across the country.
01:46 He was also an animal rights activist.
01:48 Also, he was dyslexic.
01:49 I mean, he left school at 13 years of age,
01:51 being unable to read or write,
01:53 and then he became one of our most seasoned
01:55 and most celebrated poets.
01:56 I think one of the reasons why he cut through
01:59 was just his authenticity and tenacity.
02:01 I mean, Benjamin Zephaniah was someone
02:03 who critiqued the legal system.
02:05 He was vocal about racism.
02:07 He wrote "Rasta Time in Palestine" in 1990,
02:09 following his visit.
02:11 He refused an MBE.
02:12 I mean, he was someone who stood in his integrity
02:15 and authenticity in every opportunity he could.
02:18 - I'll come back to the subject matter
02:21 of so much of his writings in a moment,
02:23 but you told our producer, when people become famous,
02:26 they can put up barriers between them and their communities.
02:29 Benjamin worked to make sure those barriers
02:32 never existed in the first place.
02:34 - I mean, Benjamin went into writing
02:37 because he wanted to take away the dead image of poetry.
02:41 And I don't think we realize, or we always realize,
02:43 just how big Benjamin was.
02:45 Because when you met him,
02:46 it felt like meeting a family member.
02:48 Our very own Alice Bandukravi tweeted a bit earlier on
02:52 around her first meeting with him
02:53 and him taking her out to lunch
02:55 and making her feel so at home.
02:57 I mean, Benjamin was a people person.
02:59 He was a community person.
03:00 That doesn't take away from just how amazing he was
03:04 and is at his legacy.
03:07 - Tell me more about his subject matter.
03:08 I was just looking at some of his interviews in the past.
03:11 I was amused by one he gave to Channel 4,
03:14 where he said, "I'm an anarchist.
03:16 "I'd like to have a revolution,
03:17 "but everyone is too busy shopping."
03:20 That was absolutely classic him.
03:22 But in terms of the broader subject matter,
03:25 I mean, there was some pretty tough stuff.
03:27 He quite often returned, didn't he,
03:29 to being Black and British
03:31 and what life was like, 60s, 70s, 80s.
03:33 - Yeah, absolutely.
03:35 I mean, you can't remove your Black identity
03:38 from your British identity.
03:39 And also, he was a descendant of a Bajan parent
03:43 and a Jamaican parent,
03:44 and also a proud person from Birmingham as well.
03:47 So he was in peaky blinders as well.
03:49 I mean, if you look at him historically,
03:51 Benjamin had a very hard time,
03:52 and he was very honest about the hard time he had.
03:54 He spoke so much about racism,
03:57 not just because of his own experiences,
03:59 but just his desire and love for his community
04:01 and want for them not to have to go through
04:03 the very same things he went through earlier on in his life.
04:07 - There was also so much fun, wasn't there, in his writing.
04:09 One remembers talking turkeys
04:11 and the connection he had
04:13 with so many young people and children.
04:15 Now, you mentioned turning down an OBE.
04:18 It wasn't just the empire word in the OBE
04:21 that sort of was behind that.
04:23 He talked about them making the point
04:26 it was his contribution to literature,
04:28 but he said, "What about my contribution to animal rights?
04:31 "What about my contribution to writing to prisoners?"
04:33 All the things he was really so desperate
04:36 to be involved with.
04:38 - Yeah, and he wasn't a one-dimensional person.
04:40 And again, I think it comes back
04:42 to what I said a bit earlier on,
04:43 his authenticity and his tenacity.
04:46 He wasn't somebody to be boxed,
04:48 and his writing was a tool for him to be able to speak
04:50 about his activism and vice versa.
04:52 They both informed each other.
04:54 So for Benjamin, I mean, he spoke directly about,
04:57 "I've spent my whole life fighting the empire
04:59 "or critiquing the empire.
05:01 "Why would I want to be branded with it?"
05:03 And I think for a lot of us in Black Britain,
05:05 it was something that we looked to
05:07 and we could identify with.
05:08 - Do you think he gets the literary recognition he deserves?
05:13 - No, I never do.
05:15 I just think for us, if you look at the Black community,
05:18 Black British community,
05:19 specifically Black Caribbean communities,
05:22 when it comes to poetry,
05:24 poetry isn't just the ways in which we write
05:26 and recite words.
05:27 It's embedded in our culture, in our art, in our music,
05:30 in sound system culture, which he was very much part of.
05:33 I think for somebody like him,
05:35 it isn't just recognition for his poetry,
05:37 but it's his recognition for legacy and impact
05:40 that he's had on wider communities.
05:41 Not just the Black British community,
05:43 which has been immeasurable,
05:45 but just the wider world community and animals.
05:47 He was an animal rights activist
05:49 and I don't think many people know that about him.
05:51 - Richie Brave, we have to leave it there,
05:53 but thanks for your wonderful tribute.
05:55 You've done him proud.
05:56 Thanks for joining us here on BBC News and our programme.