Tighten Up: The Story of Trojan Records – Part 2: Going Mainstream

This is the second and final part of Tighten Up: The Story of Trojan Records, a BBC documentary narrated by Don Letts recalling the story of the influential record label that brought Jamaican music to the UK, and to the world.
Part 1: A Tale of Two Islands

In the early 70s Trojan Records had became a huge independent label. To make reggae more accessible to the British audience, they would soften original Jamaican mixes by adding strings, turning them into hits. To further popularise reggae they released inexpensive compilations packed with successful singles: the now cult Tigthen Up series. Progressively, Jamaican music started to be recorded and produced in the UK. Reggae was finally getting mainstream recognition.

Success didn’t last though. Rival labels were gaining more and more interest from the black communities with their rawer sound, the skinhead culture was dying out and Trojan was missing out on important evolutions in reggae, such as the adoption of Rastafarian culture. In 1975 it went bankrupt.

But all wasn’t forgotten. The Trojan sound was later revived first by the punks who identified with the street culture and socially conscious lyrics, and then by the Two Tone movement with the skinhead revival.

Listen here:

Tighten Up: The Story of Trojan Records – Part 2: Going Mainstream

Tighten Up: The Story of Trojan Records – Part 1: A Tale of Two Islands

This BBC documentary tells the story of Trojan Records, the cult UK-based Jamaican music label. Dubbed the Motown of reggae, it was widely responsible for bringing to Britain the Jamaican sound.

In the 50s, Jamaica was dancing to the sound of mento, a folk music style that could be heard everywhere across the island through the numerous sound systems. But it’s when mento morphed into the speedier upbeat tempo ska that Jamaican music started to get traction in the UK, embraced by Jamaican immigrants’ sound systems and record shops, but also for the first time by the white youth through the mod subculture.

By the mid 60s, ska had slowed down into the more musical and less macho style rocksteady, accelerating its diffusion in Great Britain through newly created label Trojan Records. But Jamaican music was still fairly obscure to the public when reggae arrived in the late 60s. This new genre was quickly adopted by the original skinheads who identified with the Jamaican rude boy style and Trojan Records went from being a cult underground label to full on charts sensation.

Part 2: Going Mainstream

Listen here:

Tighten Up: The Story of Trojan Records – Part 1: A Tale of Two Islands