Jean Binta Breeze

Jean "Binta" Breeze MBE (11 March 1956 – 4 August 2021) was a Jamaican dub poet and storyteller, acknowledged as the first woman to write and perform dub poetry. She worked also as a theatre director, choreographer, actor, and teacher. She performed her work around the world, in the Caribbean, North America, Europe, South-East Asia, and Africa, and has been called "one of the most important, influential performance poets of recent years".

Biography

Born as Jean Lumsden in rural Jamaica, to a mixed-race couple, she grew up in Patty Hill, a small village in the hills of Hanover Parish, and for a time was raised by her grandmother and great-aunt while her parents were studying and working. She attended Rusea's High School, taking A-levels in Spanish, geography and English literature, and soon after leaving in 1974, she married Brian Breese, a Welsh teacher whose name she would later adapt to Breeze. She began teaching at the local Little London high school while also working for the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, planning local events for the Jamaican festival, held in August each year.

She moved to Kingston in 1978, after her marriage ended, and studied for a year at...

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