Johnson went on to study for a degree in sociology at Goldsmiths College in New Cross, London, graduating in 1973. During the early to mid-1970s he was employed as the first paid library resources and education officer at the Keskidee Centre, where his poem "Voices of the living and the dead" was staged, produced by Jamaica novelist Lindsay Barrett, with music by the reggae group Rasta Love. Johnson has recalled: "it was fantastic, you know, having written something and having it staged with actors and musicians. That was back in 1973 before I had a poem published anywhere. That was before anyone had ever heard of Linton Kwesi Johnson."