TO HELL WITH POVERTY! documents Jon King’s story from a South London slum and impoverished working-class background to international success as core musician, lyricist, writer, and producer in legendary post-punk/funk band Gang of Four. The reader is taken on an episodic and kaleidoscopic journey full of adventures from childhood to the end of Gang of Four’s ‘golden period’ in 1984. Thrown off Top of the Pops, truncheoned by police at an anti-Nazi rally, being at the heart of Leeds music scene and the UK post-punk movement in the 1970s, fraternising with Hell’s Angels and other undesirables, supported by bands like REM and playing with the likes of the Police and Talking Heads, King’s times with Gang of Four are rich with stories.
