O F F-S E T
R E B E L D R E A D Rarely has someone been as prolific, wearing so many different hats, as Don Letts, the subject of William E. Badgley’s documentary feature film, Rebel Dread (2020). Depending on who you ask, they’ll know him as an international DJ, an award-winning filmmaker, a member of the pioneering band Big Audio Dynamite (despite not being able to sing or play an instrument), or as a forthright cultural commentator. Badgley’s film, largely narrated by Letts himself, brings Letts’ life and times together as an immersive audio-visual biography, stretching between his childhood growing up in a Britain stained by Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers
of Blood’ speech, and his trailblazing successes which followed. Watching the film, one thing stands out above nearly all else: Letts was “always on a mission, always looking for something to happen”. After soaking up the energy and DIY ethos of London’s burgeoning subcultural scenes in the 1970s, he recounts his realisation that, “if I had an idea, and I was brave enough, maybe I could be part of this thing too”. In truth, looking at the world of glass ceilings and closed doors through Letts’s eyes, nothing seems impossible. This self-belief ultimately led to Letts becoming a DJ >>
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