The women who made Trojan Records
Originating within the vibrancy of Jamaica’s music scene during the 1950s, before developing in a post-independence landscape, ska music is a truly unforgettable style of music. Ska was the triumphant sound of Jamaica’s independence, featuring tunes inspired by American R&B but with a distinctly Jamaican rhythm. In the wake of the Windrush generation, ska and reggae music took on a new life in the UK, going on to spawn the skinhead subculture and the 2 Tone movement.
The story of ska’s journey to the UK cannot be discussed without mentioning Trojan Records. Rooted in the UK but founded with the help of Jamaican sound system giant Duke Reid, Trojan was the main supplier of Jamaica’s sweet sounds to the shores of the UK. Founded predominantly to serve the needs of England’s growing Caribbean population, Trojan helped to establish the skinhead subculture.
The conversation surrounding Trojan, alongside the ska and reggae genre as a whole, is often dominated by male artists like Dandy Livingstone and Desmond Dekker. In many instances, the genre could stand accused of blatant misogyny, as represented by Prince Buster’s abhorrent track ‘Ten Commandments of Man’. However, it was the pioneering influence of female artists which helped to establish Trojan within the mainstream.
It seems ridiculous that ska could be so male-dominated, considering that the genre’s first flirt with the UK singles chart came with Millie Small’s ‘My Boy Lollipop’. Although that particular track was released on Island Records, which had a close relationship with Trojan, Small eventually recorded for Trojan. The impact of Millie Small on the development of ska cannot be overstated; what had been brought across by immigrants on Windrush had now entered the mainstream consciousness of the UK, exposing the signature Jamaican rhythm to an entirely new audience.
While Millie Small was the first, ska’s mainstream success in the UK charts was only just beginning. Bob and Marcia would reach number five in the charts in 1970 with their version of Nina Simone’s ‘Young Gifted and Black’, and although the single was released via RCA, the album of the same name would be a Trojan release. Bob and Marcia also helped launch the solo career of Marcia Griffiths, one of the most gifted and prolific artists in all of Jamaican music. Her debut solo album, Sweet Bitter Love, featuring her incredible cover of The Beatles’ ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, is essential listening for ska fans, proving to be one of Trojan’s finest releases.
Testament to the lasting influence of Trojan and Jamaican music within the UK, the late 1970s saw something of a resurgence in the popularity of the genre. The 2 Tone movement, which rose from Coventry, had a deep appreciation for Trojan releases, and the punk rock movement was closely tied to reggae. Speaking to this popularity, teenage singers Althea Forrest and Donna Reid made a lasting impact on the UK charts in 1977 with their hit single ‘Uptown Top Ranking’, which remains an intensely popular tune to this day.
Trojan Records themselves celebrated their incredible roster of female artists, releasing a compilation album in 2019 entitled Love Is All I Bring (taking its title from the lyrics of ‘Uptown Top Ranking’). With a tracklisting composed entirely of reggae’s greatest female artists, including the likes of Susan Cadogan, Sophia George and Janet Kay, among various others, the album could almost be a direct answer to the chauvinism of Prince Buster – a signifier that it is the contributions of female artists that makes ska such an endearing genre.
