🔥🎙️ Rebel Frequency — EsSense Of Ebony Books (A REBEL Story) 🔥🎙️

Gripping, raw, and lyrical, Rebel Frequency pulses with the heat of 1980s Brixton and the unyielding spirit of a people who refuse to be silenced 🔥

Brixton, 1989

The bass wasn’t just music, it was a heartbeat pounding through the cracked concrete and graffiti-stained walls of Coldharbour Lane. It rattled windows and set loose the restless spirits of the night, dragging bodies out of dark corners to move, to breathe, to claim the streets.

Delroy pulled his ragged tam down over his head, shoulders hunched against the cool night air, thick with the sharp tang of curry and smoke from a hundred little fires. He hugged the shoebox tight under one arm — the battered casing worn from years of grime, but inside, the treasure: a cassette labeled Delz – Riddim Fi Days. His own beats. His own words.

He stepped carefully over broken glass and discarded flyers for the last rave, making his way through the labyrinth of alleyways behind the high street. The smell of weed and spilt rum mixed with the distant hum of a sound system heating up for the night’s clash.

At the corner, two men leaned against a lamppost, their eyes glowing gold in the flickering light. One had a scar running down his temple; the other wore a heavy gold chain that caught the streetlight and flashed like a warning sign.

“You come fi Linx?” the scarred one asked, voice low and rough like gravel.

Delroy nodded, biting his lip. “Yeah, cousin said I could drop this tonight.”

The man laughed, a deep, knowing sound. “You think yuh ready to step inna this? Ain’t no place for shy boys ‘round here. Go ‘round back — knock twice, wait one, knock once more. If yuh knock wrong, yuh gone be left outside with the rats.”

Delroy swallowed his nerves and slipped through a rusty gate, pushing past the chipped paint and ragged posters that flapped in the breeze like old ghosts.

Behind the building was the real world — plastic chairs in a messy circle, kids twisting and laughing, girls in oversized denim jackets flicking their hair to the rhythm of distant bass. The giant speaker stack hummed like a beast breathing deep, ready to roar.

Delroy knocked twice, counted in his head — one Mississippi — then once more.

The door creaked open just enough to reveal a pair of dark eyes.

“Enter, yout’,” the voice whispered.

Inside, the air was thick and sticky — sweat, weed, damp clothes, and the faint ghost of talcum powder. Walls were plastered with torn flyers from dancehall parties past, and the floor creaked under the weight of too many dancing feet.

Delroy’s cousin, Linx, stood behind the decks, bald and imposing, shaded in the gloom despite the flicker of candlelight and a lone bare bulb hanging by a thread. He flicked a switch, and silence fell like a shroud.

“Time to show what yuh got,” Linx said.

Delroy stepped forward, the tape deck blinking red. He pressed play, and the room filled with a slow, grinding riddim — the bass thick like molasses, the drum pattern sharp and clear.

Then Delroy took a breath and stepped up to the mic.

“Yo, this is Delz —

From Brixton to the ends, I rise and I defend,

Riddim in my veins, lyrics sharp like a pen.

No stranger to the struggle, born from concrete and grime,

I spit fire on the mic, take it back in time.”

His voice cut through the bass, rough and raw, but steady. Heads nodded. Feet stomped. The energy in the room shifted.

“Listen close, this is for my mummy, holdin’ Bible in her hand,

Sayin’ no to dancehall, but I’m here to make a stand.

For the youth in the street, tryna find their own way,

In the shadow of the city, we make the night our day.”

The crowd leaned in, caught in the rhythm of his words, the pulse of the music, the promise of something more. Linx smiled, a slow, proud grin.

But outside, the night wasn’t kind. The distant wail of sirens was a reminder that the world beyond these walls was watching, waiting to shut down their dreams.

Delroy knew the stakes — one wrong move, and everything could come crashing down. But for now, he was here. Present. Alive.

The Raid

The bass was still thumping deep when the heavy boots hit the pavement, sharp and deliberate. Delroy caught the sound mid-verse, his heart skipping a beat.

“Police!” a girl screamed, her voice cutting through the music like a blade. It spread instantly — Police! Police!

Linx spat on the floor, eyes dark. “Fuckin’ beast bwoy dem, rollin’ up again. Move, move, move!”

Before anyone could react, the door was kicked in with a brutal crash. Blue and white uniforms flooded the room, their faces tight with hatred, voices sharp and cold.

“Everyone on the floor! Hands behind your head! Now!” barked a tall, pale-faced officer with a clipped accent. No respect, just raw command.

Delroy dropped to the floor, chest tight, mouth dry. The air turned thick with fear and sweat.

“Oi, you! Boy with the mic!” sneered a second cop, sneering like it was a joke to him. “Think you’re some kinda superstar, yeah?”

Delroy’s throat tightened. The mic was ripped from its stand, the tape yanked free and crushed under a boot.

“This ain’t your playground. Sound system’s banned. We don’t want your monkey noise in our streets.”

Linx tried to stand tall, but two cops slammed him against the wall, cuffs clicking tight. His eyes burned with frustration and shame.

“Name?” the tall officer demanded. His breath hot on Delroy’s face.

“Delroy,” he said quietly.

“You’re coming with us, boy.”

The room erupted. An older St Lucian man spat at the officers. “This is our culture! Our lives! You all just wanna shut us down ‘cause we’re black!”

One cop laughed, the sound cold and cruel.

“Culture? You’re nothing but troublemakers. We’re here to keep order. You lot don’t belong here.”

A woman shouted back, “Fuck the police!”

That was it. The room exploded. The officers shoved, grabbed, and dragged. Sirens blared outside, flashing lights painting the cracked walls in blue and white.

Delroy’s ears rang as they lined them up outside. Knees burning on cold concrete, hands stinging from cuffs.

Mothers screamed from upstairs windows, neighbors cursed the officers down.

Linx caught Delroy’s eye, voice low but firm. “Keep your head, Delz. They want fear. Don’t give it to ’em.”

It was more than a raid. It was a message: You don’t belong. You’re not welcome.

But inside Delroy, the riddim kept burning.

Time in Custody

The cell was cold, damp, and smelling of sweat and stale piss. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, flickering, casting shadows on the cracked concrete walls. Delroy sat on the metal bench, wrists still stinging from the tight handcuffs, heart pounding in his chest.

Two other men were already there, one big, scarred, his face set hard like stone; the other thin and nervous, glancing at the door every few seconds. Delroy kept his head down, the weight of what just happened pressing on him like a stone.

The steel door slammed open and the two officers from before marched in. The taller one, his pale face twisted with hatred, barked, “Oi! You! Scarface! Thought you were clever, did ya?”

Before anyone could answer, the big man was yanked roughly to his feet and slammed against the wall. The other cop cracked his baton against the man’s ribs, making him cough and grunt in pain.

“Answer properly or we’ll break you,” the taller officer spat, his voice cold and cruel.

The scarred man tried to speak but only blood came out. Delroy’s stomach churned. He wanted to look away but couldn’t. The officers started beating him—kicks, punches, baton strikes—all while Delroy and the other inmate stayed silent, too scared or helpless to act.

When the officers finally left, the big man lay gasping on the floor, bruised and broken.

Time dragged on slow and cruel. Every sound from outside made Delroy jump. His mind raced with anger and fear, the bitter taste of injustice hanging thick in the air.

When they finally let Delroy out, his body ached, but the worse pain was the rage burning inside him. The story of the beating had spread like wildfire.

At the youth centre and on street corners, the talk was loud and angry.

“Coppers smashed a man in there. No right!” one woman whispered, shaking her head.

“They think they can do what they want ’cause we’re black,” another said bitterly.

Posters went up overnight — Justice for the Brother They Broke — and the whole community felt the weight of the injustice.

Delroy sat on the steps outside the centre, pulling out a battered notebook and a pen. The words came quick, burning with pain and fire.

Dubwise Chune — Cell Block Fire

Inna di cell block, cold and dark,

Coppers beat down a brother’s heart,

No justice here, just pain and fear,

But we rise up — we make it clear.

Bassline heavy, riddim deep,

Carry the cries the people keep,

From Brixton streets to cold steel walls,

Hear the call — hear the call.

Fire inna di cell block, fire inna di street,

We stomp, we chant to our own heartbeat,

No chains hold what’s born inside,

Inna dubwise spirit, we gonna ride.

The chune spread fast, a raw anthem of pain and resistance. Delroy’s voice, rough but full of truth, gave the people something real to hold on to.

The police had the cages and batons, but the spirit of the streets — the riddim — that was something they could never break.

Fire Spread

Delroy didn’t sleep for three nights after witnessing the beating.

The sound of boots in the corridor, the way the baton cracked ribs like dry sticks — it all looped in his mind, over and over. But he wasn’t the only one haunted. The whole ends felt different now. Charged. Like the air was soaked in petrol and just waiting for a spark.

And it wasn’t new. Everyone knew this thing had been building. Long before Delroy spat bars in basements or dropped dubplates in backyards, the feds had been moving wicked.

April 1981. He was just a youth then, but he remembered it clear. The fires. The shouting. The helicopters buzzing over Brixton like hornets. The sus laws — those stop-and-search powers — used like a whip. Black boys dragged up on pavements, searched for “looking suspicious.” No evidence. Just melanin.

He remembered the name Michael Bailey — a young Black man, just 20, who got chased down by police and ended up dead. They said he’d stabbed himself. No one believed it.

And Olive Morris — a fierce sister, activist, warrior — she’d stood up to the pigs back in the ’70s. Died young. But her name still rang in the streets.

And then there was New Cross, just a few months before the ’81 riots. A fire killed 13 Black kids at a birthday party. Thirteen. And the media? Silent. Cold. Like Black lives were background noise.

That was the spark. Brixton lit up like Kingston in hurricane season. Fires burned, windows shattered, and the youth clashed with riot police in full armour. Horses charged through Railton Road, batons flying, shields up.

Delroy’s bredrin, Dean, had been there. He got hit in the face with a shield. Still had the scar under his eye like a war medal.

“They don’t love us, fam,” Dean used to say. “This system? Built against we. But they cyan stop the sound. They cyan stop the people.”

Now it was 1990, nearly a decade on, but nothing had really changed. Still Black boys in cuffs. Still police dragging youths out of dances, shutting down culture. Still blood on the concrete.

Delroy stood in the middle of Electric Avenue, hands in his pockets, watching the faces of the elders and the youngers alike — all tight with anger. He knew something was coming. Something big.

The man who got battered in the cell — his name was Trevor Lewis. Thirty-two. Father of two. He was still in hospital, jaw wired shut. The police claimed he "fell." But too many saw the truth.

Delroy had recorded his dubwise chune already. One take. Raw. No edits. Just pain, bassline, and truth. He pressed a handful of copies and passed them out in white sleeves.

Soon, it started playing on pirate stations across South — Vibes FM, Station FM, even late night on PowerJam.

People rang in. Cried. Cursed. Remembered.

One elder called in and said: “This tune remind me of 1981. It nuh over. It jus’ change form.”

By the weekend, placards were going up. “NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE.” “HANDS OFF OUR SONS.” “WE STILL REMEMBER NEW CROSS.”

The march started outside the library. Elders. Rastas. Students. Mandem in tracksuits. Sisters with prams. Some in silence. Others chanting. Smoke in the air. Vexation in every step.

And Delroy walked with them, mic slung over his shoulder, heart pounding with purpose.

He wasn’t just an MC now. He was a witness. A griot. A soundboy with a mission.

They couldn’t silence him. Couldn’t silence the streets.

Because once the people rise? Not even Babylon can hold them back.

Blood in the Bassline

Brixton was burning. Not with fire, not yet, but with something worse.

Pressure.

The kind you feel in your chest, in your bones, when you know something’s coming but you can’t stop it. Like thunder before a storm.

Delroy stood near the front of the march, a mic in one hand, his battered notebook in the other. His dub chune “Cell Block Fire” had become a war cry. People played it from cassette decks, blasted it from car windows. It was the voice of the community now — angry, grieving, unbowed.

He looked around at the crowd building behind him. This wasn’t just Black youth anymore. This was everyone who’d had enough.

Mrs. Chin from the bakery stood in her apron, holding a hand-painted sign: “WE STAND WITH TREVOR”.

“Dem too wicked, man,” she muttered. “Same police mash up my nephew in Lewisham last year. He only sixteen!”

A crew of older Rasta men, beards grey but eyes blazing, stood nearby beating drums slow and steady. One of them — Ras Mekka — looked at Delroy and nodded.

“Babylon tek set, but today dem feel the judgement.”

Behind them, two Turkish boys in bomber jackets, Arif and Kemal, carried a speaker on a trolley. It wheeled and bumped over the pavement, blasting a heavy riddim from Saxon days.

“You think they’ll really listen this time?” Kemal asked.

“No,” said Arif, “but they’ll hear us. Different ting.”

Across the road, a group of Somali aunties in hijab chanted loud and fearless. “Justice now! Justice now!” Their kids held signs drawn in crayon.

A white punk with blue hair shouted through a megaphone. “Police brutality is state violence! Black lives! Immigrant lives! Working class lives!”

And the banners stretched wide:

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE

THE BEATINGS NEVER STOPPED

FROM NEW CROSS TO NOW — NEVER AGAIN

The air was thick. Too quiet.

And then, it came.

A line of riot police at the top of the street. Shields up. Batons out. Faces blank. Helmets like stormtroopers.

Delroy’s heart dropped.

One of the boys from Tulse Hill shouted, “Nah! We said PEACEFUL, man!”

But it was too late.

A bottle smashed. Then another.

A young girl screamed as a flashbang exploded near the pavement. People scattered. Shields slammed into backs. Batons raised and fell.

Delroy felt someone yank him back. Ras Mekka pulled him behind a parked car as the wall of riot police advanced.

“They waan war,” Mekka growled. “Now dem gettin’ it.”

A car was flipped near the junction. A molotov lit the night like a flare. The speaker trolley exploded in sparks. Kemal cried out, holding his arm.

“Arif! They got Arif!” someone shouted.

Delroy clambered to his feet, running through smoke and chaos. He saw Mrs. Chin kneeling beside a girl with blood on her forehead. Two Rastas pulled her beside a shuttered shop.

At the front line, fists flew. Bricks cracked plastic shields. Tear gas hissed, curling into the eyes of old men, young girls, elders with canes.

Through the madness, Delroy found his way to the shattered shell of the youth centre. Glass crunched beneath his trainers. Inside, the walls still held photos of smiling teens and dancehall flyers.

He grabbed a mic from the desk. Plugged it into the battered PA.

And then he spoke.

“Dem a try mash we down! Dem a try silence the sound! But we still here. We still a chant. We still a BLAZE.”

The mic fed back. Then caught his voice clean.

“This is not a riot. This is a reaction. You bruk di man jaw inna di cell — now feel the people’s pain!”

The sound system roared back to life. Somehow, power returned.

Delroy dropped the dubplate. “Cell Block Fire (War Mix)” — heavier bass, sharper snares.

It pulsed. It rumbled. It summoned.

The people danced through smoke. Through pain. Through fear. One defiant riddim against a thousand shields.

Sirens wailed. Helicopters chopped the sky.

But the streets were alive.

A Jamaican flag waved beside a Palestinian keffiyeh. A Sikh elder handed out water to the youngers. A girl from Peckham with box braids and bruised knuckles stood atop a burnt-out car shouting: “WE DON’T BOW TO BABYLON!”

The fire came later. The flames. The headlines. The lies.

But they knew the truth.

That night wasn’t about violence.

It was about history.

It was about Black bodies broken in silence. About unmarked graves in concrete jungles. About generations who couldn’t breathe.

And now — finally — a voice.

Delroy closed his eyes as the bassline swallowed him whole.

He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring.

But tonight? Tonight, the streets sang back.

And the system shook.