Cultural Renaissance Man Don Letts Is The Subject Of A New Documentary

Throughout his astounding career dating back to the 1970s, the London-born Don Letts has worn many different hats: DJ, filmmaker, music video director, longtime associate of the Clash, member of the band Big Audio Dynamite, cultural commentator, author and radio show host. Yet for all of his accomplishments and renaissance spirit, one role that Letts has not fully embraced quite yet is as a documentary subject in the new film Rebel Dread.

“I’ve spent my whole life working in the shadows,” Letts, 66, says during a recent visit to New York City, “and that’s a very comfortable place for me. So having the spotlight directly on me has been making me squirm for quite a while. I’m a great believer that you need to justify the space you occupy, and I’m yet to be convinced that I’ve done that, I have to admit.”

Those who are familiar with Letts’ history would probably disagree with that assessment. The Rebel Dread documentary, which was directed by William Badgely and produced by Phil Hunt and Mark Vennis, traces Letts’ life with interviews with the man himself and his contemporaries and admirers—such as the Clash’s Mick Jones and Paul Simonon; Sex Pistols’ John Lydon; Big Audio Dynamite’s Leo Williams and Greg Roberts; and British music journalists Chris Salewicz and Vivien Goldman. The film became available for streaming rental and purchase in North America this week after its recent screenings in New York and Los Angeles.

“From what I can tell, my only discernible talent is having good taste, and apparently, in the 21st century, that’s some serious currency,” Letts, who famously linked British punk and reggae in the 1970s, says. “But joking aside, the whole process [of making the film] has given my work meaning and that is rewarding.”

The son of Jamaican parents who arrived in the U.K. as immigrants during the mid-1950s, Letts developed serious cultural and styles tastes during his youth. “I grew up in a period when music and fashion were the only way we had to express ourselves and get some kind of identity. And in England, we turned that into an art form, hence the proliferation of style-driven sub-cultures in the last half of the 20th century, because that’s all we had. Yeah, tremendously important in the U.K., especially to the working class. And I’m part of that generation.”

Along with reggae, Letts found himself exposed to the music of R&B and rock acts such as James Brown and the Who—as he described in the documentary, music is an elixir of life. “The reason it was so important is that it was also the only alternative form of information and inspiration. You got to understand: I was a Black kid growing up in Brixton on a council flat. It was only through music that transported me to places I could never reach. That’s how I traveled back in the day, via transistor radio. The music is a large part of who I am, without a doubt.”

Into his young adulthood, Letts met future Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, both of whom operated the London punk boutique clothing store Sex. “I met Malcolm three or four years before the word punk out even appeared on the screen. It was Malcolm who really made me understand that this sort of sub-cultural or countercultural stuff that I was so enamored with, that it had a tradition and it had a heritage. And if I was brave enough and motivated enough, I could be part of it. I didn’t have to be a fan standing on the sidelines It was really Malcolm that put the seed of the idea in my head.”

While managing the hip and popular London clothing store Acme Attractions with Jeannette Lee, Letts immersed himself in the punk rock scene. In 1977, he became the resident DJ at the Roxy club where such soon-to-be-famous punk acts played. Most importantly, he had the foresight to capture their performances with his Super 8 camera, kicking off his film career starting with the 1978 documentary The Punk Rock Movie. “At the time, the whole DIY thing is exploding. That was punk rock’s greatest gift: ‘do it yourself.’ So all my white mates are picking up guitars, and I want to pick up something, too. I pick up a super 8 camera, inspired by seeing a film a few years before called The Harder They Come. I dreamt about wanting to express myself in a visual medium. But back then, it was an old white boys’ network.

“Then punk comes along with a DIY ethic. I pick up a camera and I basically start filming the things that are speaking to me, that are turning me on. Luckily it seems I had good taste because I’m filming the Clash, the Pistols, the Slits, the Buzzcocks, Subway Sect, Siouxie and the Banshees, and the reggae stuff that was turning me on as well. By default, I captured this whole punky reggae thing that’s a bit of a myth and a mystery, but for a while, it was a reality as Bob [Marley] sang in a song, “Punky Reggae Party.”

Letts became close with members of the punk rock scene, most notably the Clash (he later directed the 2000 documentary about the band titled Westway to the World). “Initially, it was style and music,” he says about why they connected with each other. ”That’s how we communicated back then. It might’ve been through a mix tape or them seeing my style. What brought us together was our mutual love of Jamaican music. That was the commonality because particularly with [Clash bassist] Paul Simonon—he was actually a skinhead. Now when I say skinhead, I gotta qualify this: back in the day, we’re talking about the fashion version, not the fascist version that would emerge in the ‘70s. In the late ’60s, skinhead was a kind of mash-up of white working-class Mod style and Jamaican rude boy style, and those two things were mixed together.”

As Rebel Dread depicts, Letts played a pivotal role in connecting the seemingly different worlds of punk rock and reggae in the U.K. together. “At some point in my life, I decided that if something spoke to me, I’d put my hand up and admit it. I wasn’t happy being defined by my color or falling into the whole tribal thing: ‘You’re Black, you only listen to this.’ No. If a Led Zeppelin riff speaks to me, I’m digging Led Zeppelin, you know what I mean? I’ve been like that my whole life. It’s the kind of juxtaposition of all these different cultures that make the world go around.

“We were like-minded rebels. We were outsiders. People often say to me, ‘Well, what did punk get out of reggae?’ What punk got out of reggae was the bass lines, as you can hear in some of the Clash tunes and the Slits tunes and later on with Public Image Ltd. They liked the kind of musical reportage quality of the lyrics. On the other side of that coin, people say, ‘What did reggae get out of it?’ And what reggae got was exposure. That’s all it needed because the brothers and sisters could do the rest themselves, and it was on the back of the punk rock explosion that reggae entered the international arena.”

Although by his own admission that he never initially sought to pursue a music career, Letts co-founded the band Big Audio Dynamite with Mick Jones in 1984 after Jones departed from the Clash. Beginning with the release of their 1985 debut album This Is Big Audio Dynamite and the single “E=MC2,” Big Audio Dynamite were ahead of the curve with their fusion of rock, electronic and dance music influences.

“Mick Jones did twist my arm and with the help of a lot of colored stickers on my keyboard. I spent eight years proudly with Big Audio Dynamite. As you know, we were known for doing the whole sample and dialogue thing. That’s because I couldn’t play anything. And as I said earlier, it’s really important you justify the space you occupy—otherwise, you’re baggage. So I’m doing that sample and dialogue thing because I couldn’t play. I threw myself into writing lyrics and ended up co-writing 50 percent of the songs with Mick. That whole culture clash, Jamaican bass lines, New York beats, Mick’s rock and roll guitar, and the whole sample and dialogue thing–very cool.”

Rebel Dread also touches on Letts’ career as a sought-after music video director who helmed such clips for the Clash, Elvis Costello, Pretenders, Musical Youth, and most notably–and perhaps unlikely–American heavy metal band Ratt on their 1984 video for “Round and Round,” which featured a cameo by comedy legend Milton Berle.

“I was living in L.A. and working for a company called Limelight,” he says. “Every week there are names on a slate of different bands that needed videos. And on that week, nothing came up that appealed to me, but I saw this group ‘Ratt.’ I happened to know that [their manager] was related to Milton Berle. Now I’m old enough to recognize Milton Berle was old-school Hollywood that doesn’t exist anymore. I took the gig because I said, ‘Look, if you can get Milton Berle to do a cameo, I’ll do this video.’ And that’s the only reason I did it, to be honest. What’s interesting is when we made the video, [Ratt] were on tour with Motley Crue. The video came out in the middle of the tour, it blew up so big that they have to flip the lineup and Motley Crue ended up supporting them.”

These days, Letts continues to deejay as well as host a show for BBC Radio 6; in 2021, he published his memoir There and Black Again. But that’s not all for him: next year, Letts is planning to release Outta Sync, his first-ever solo album. As Rebel Dread effectively documents, with all that he’s done in almost the last 50 years, Letts still remains motivated in new creative endeavors.

“Another thing through doing this film, I’m like, ‘Why is it that I can’t stand still and stop?’ It’s kind of weird, but I realize that throwing myself into a project and being creative stops me from dealing with anything that’s vaguely real. And when I’m talking about ‘real,’ I’m talking about emotional or psychological—it stops me from dealing with myself. So I’ve come to the conclusion I’m probably not a well-adjusted human being, but I’ve turned what would be perceived as something negative into something positive by being creative. And that’s good enough for me.”

Rebel Dread, which is already out in the U.K., is now available for streaming in North America. For information on the film, visit this website.