Blackbeard has been played on NTS over 30 times, featured on 35 episodes and was first played on 1 April 2013.

Dennis Bovell is a legendary reggae guitarist and music producer. He was born in 1953 in Saint Peter, Barbados, West Indies and moved to England with his family at the age of 12.

He was a member of the British-based reggae band Matumbi and released dub and reggae discs under his own name as well as the pseudonym Blackbeard.

He has produced albums by a wide variety of artists including I-Roy, The Pop Group, The Slits and The Thompson Twins. He has collaborated with dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson for much of his working life.

Bovell is widely credited as the inventor of lover's rock --- a style of reggae with light, apolitical, romantic lyrical themes marketed towards young women. He is also known for attempting to fuse disco rhythms with reggae, most notably with the hit song "Silly Games" by Janet Kaye.