The British poet Benjamin Zephaniah has died aged 65 after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.
The son of a Barbadian postman and a Jamaican nurse, he was born and raised in Handsworth, Birmingham.
He was dyslexic and left school aged 13, unable to read or write. But despite this, he published his first book aged just 22 and ended up becoming a familiar face on TV, credited with bringing Dub Poetry into British living rooms.
His work often addressed political injustice and in 2019, he hosted our Music Life podcast, discussing the role of social responsibility in music.
For his great works, he was included in The Times list of Britain’s top 50 post-war writers in 2008.
Between 2013 and 2022, Zephaniah played the role of preacher Jeremiah “Jimmy” Jesus in BBC drama Peaky Blinders, appearing in 14 episodes across the 6 series. In 2020 he appeared as a panellist on the BBC television show QI, on the episode “Roaming.
