Soul Jazz Vinyl, CD & Tape 153 Items

Willie Williams" seminal "No One Can Stop Us Now" is a cover of Ashford and Simpson"s soul/disco classic "Ain"t No Stopping Us Now", and is simply one of the greatest, most soulful reggae/disco cuts ever made and is the latest in the series of Limited Edition 12"s of all-time Classic Studio One party bombs available on super loud 12". First released on Studio One in 1979, this party anthem features the sublime keyboards of Jackie Mittoo alongside the awesome studio group, The Brentford All Stars (here working under the name The Brentford Disco Set).

Soul Jazz Records’ latest album ‘Yoruba! Songs and Rhythms for the Yoruba Gods in Nigeria’ is newly recorded in Lagos, Nigeria. The album is co-produced by Soul Jazz Records label head Stuart Baker and Laolu Akins (founding member of the legendary 1970s Nigerian Afro-Funk/Rock group Blo). Yoruba! features an array of local master drummers led by Olatunji Samson Sotimirin and singers (featuring the lead vocals of Janet Olufanmilayo Abe) performing heavyweight Afro-rhythms, with talking drums, Bata and Dundun drums and a mass of percussion in these deep spiritual and sacred songs used to honour and worship the traditional and ancient Yoruba gods in Nigeria, West Africa.
The enormous impact of Yoruba and West African music and culture is worldwide – from the first Afro-centric explorations of African-American jazz musicians in the 1950s such as Art Blakey, Randy Weston and Dizzy Gillespie, the explosion of Nu Yorican Latin music in New York City starting in the 1960s – Mambo, Boogaloo, Latin funk and soul - through to the sacred and powerful Afro-derived music of the religions of Santería in Cuba, Candomblé in Brazil and Voodoo in Haiti, which all came into existence on account of the Atlantic slave trade which began over 400 years ago. On a wider scale West African music remains the primary root of all African-American musical forms – from New Orleans jazz to Bronx rap, gospel, soul and more.
This album features songs honouring the Nigerian gods of the Yoruba traditional religion – Yemoja, Obatala, Ogun, Sango and others – as well as a selection of instrumental cuts focussing on the Bata and Dundun drums. The album comes complete with extensive text and photography included in the 40-page outsize booklet/gatefold double vinyl + inners showing the influence of Yoruba culture throughout the world and the social and historical context for the music contained here.

Soul Jazz Records’ new album features the truly intense, hypnotic and fascinating Vodou drums of Haiti, a stunning collection of trance-like rhythms and beats traditionally used to induce spirit possession in the Vodou religion.
Soul Jazz Records first journeyed to Haiti in 1996 to record a series of three albums about Haitian Vodou music and culture. One of these, ‘Voodoo Drums’, featuring the drum rhythms used to bring about spirit possession, struck a striking chord with listeners and amazingly went on to become one of their best-selling albums.
"I haven't heard anything quite like this; the rhythms are very deeply orchestrated yet it also sounds like improvisation. There are tonalities and textures coming from this album like I've never heard. A great album by Soul Jazz, very well recorded. Some of the sounds I have no idea how they are getting them! This album is bending my ear and setting off the dancing devils in my soul!! Unreal!" Guardian
In 2016 Soul Jazz Records returned to Haiti once more to record a new second volume of the same intense Vodou drumming. Recorded in the capital of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, some 20 years after their first visit, this album also features the very same musicians, the Drummers of the Société Absolument Guinin.

Colored vinyl edition.

Soul Jazz Records new ‘Two Synths, A Guitar (and) A Drum Machine’ is a new collection of current D-i-y post-punk bands shaped by the mutant sounds of no wave, punk funk and New York Noise bands from the late 70s and early 80s that collided with the world of underground dance music found at the Paradise Garage, Mudd Club in New York City (esg, Arthur Russell, Bush Tetras, Talking Heads, Suicide, Liquid Liquid).

Soul Jazz Records new ‘Two Synths, A Guitar (and) A Drum Machine’ is a new collection of current D-i-y post-punk bands shaped by the mutant sounds of no wave, punk funk and New York Noise bands from the late 70s and early 80s that collided with the world of underground dance music found at the Paradise Garage, Mudd Club in New York City (esg, Arthur Russell, Bush Tetras, Talking Heads, Suicide, Liquid Liquid).

Other influences cited here include Manchester and Sheffield’s industrial post-punk sounds of the 1980s (Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Gang of Four) as well as the 1970s German electronic experimentalism of Cluster, Neu!, Harmonia and Can.

Featured artists from around the globe include Los Angeles D-i-y band Automatic, New Fries from Toronto, artist/music collaborators Toresch from Germany, Susumu Makai from Japan/UK, Vex Ruffin from the Phillipines/California and Madmadmad, Gramme, Tom of England and other UK groups

That all the bands featured here manage to make distinctive contemporary music out of these 80s roots is testament to the wide range of other musics that are seamlessly absorbed into a modern melting pot of sound – hip-hop, the electronic European avant-garde, rave culture, and more.

Two Synths, A Guitar (and) A Drum Machine come as a heavyweight double vinyl housed in bespoke individual inner sleeves and the limited edition first pressing of this album comes with its own free pull-out fanzine on the groups featured.

Soul Jazz Records new ‘Two Synths, A Guitar (and) A Drum Machine’ is a new collection of current D-i-y post-punk bands shaped by the mutant sounds of no wave, punk funk and New York Noise bands from the late 70s and early 80s that collided with the world of underground dance music found at the Paradise Garage, Mudd Club in New York City (esg, Arthur Russell, Bush Tetras, Talking Heads, Suicide, Liquid Liquid).

Other influences cited here include Manchester and Sheffield’s industrial post-punk sounds of the 1980s (Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Gang of Four) as well as the 1970s German electronic experimentalism of Cluster, Neu!, Harmonia and Can.

Featured artists from around the globe include Los Angeles D-i-y band Automatic, New Fries from Toronto, artist/music collaborators Toresch from Germany, Susumu Makai from Japan/UK, Vex Ruffin from the Phillipines/California and Madmadmad, Gramme, Tom of England and other UK groups

That all the bands featured here manage to make distinctive contemporary music out of these 80s roots is testament to the wide range of other musics that are seamlessly absorbed into a modern melting pot of sound – hip-hop, the electronic European avant-garde, rave culture, and more.

Two Synths, A Guitar (and) A Drum Machine come as a heavyweight double vinyl housed in bespoke individual inner sleeves and the limited edition first pressing of this album comes with its own free pull-out fanzine on the groups featured.

This album here is a lightning roller coaster musical journey through the music of Studio One, the most important record company in the history of Jamaican reggae music. Ska and Rock Steady feature from the greatest names in reggae: The Skatalites, The Maytals, Marcia Griffiths and The Heptones alongside vocal and roots styles from Horace Andy, Willie Williams and Wailing Souls; DJ and dancehall styles from Michigan and Smiley, Prince Jazzbo and Lone Ranger; plus some wicked instrumental and dub. It's all here! 100% essential foundation style.

A blistering collection of ska tunes from Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd's legendary Studio One Records, Jamaica's foundation label of reggae music. Featuring classic cuts from the originators of Ska - The Skatalites, The Wailers, Lee Perry - alongside a heavy dose of superb rarities from the might vaults of 13 Brentford Road - pure Ska Fever !

Studio One Rocksteady is the fantastic new instalment in Soul Jazz Records' journey through the mighty vaults of Studio One, reggae's number one record company and its legendary pioneering producer Clement Sir Coxsone Dodd.

This is a very special one-off new special edition of one of the most popular of all the Soul Jazz Records" collections that has been out of print for many years! Featuring great new sleeve design as well as a special Colored Vinyl pressing, Studio One Kings is a "who"s who" of the world"s greatest reggae artists. Studio One"s list of singers launched at the famous label reads like a roll call of Jamaican music. Horace Andy, Alton Ellis, Ken Boothe, Freddie McGregor, Johnny Osbourne and more. This album features classic and rare tracks that span the breadth of the legendary Studio One catalogue: Ska, Roots, Rocksteady, Lovers and more from the 1960s and 70s. The album also comes with sleeve-notes by the great writer Chris Salewicz, author of books on Reggae Explosion, Rude Boy as well as books on Bob Marley, The Rolling Stones, Jimmy Page, Joe Strummer and more.

Studio One Freedom Sounds is the new collection from Soul Jazz/ Studio One focussing on the intense period in the second half of the 1960s when Studio One’s vast and unbeatable output of ska, soul, rock steady and reggae made it literally one of the hottest musical empires in the world.
During this highly successful period, Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd released hundreds and hundreds of superlative singles seemingly on an almost daily basis, in the process making huge stars out of Jamaican singers such as Alton Ellis, Delroy Wilson, The Wailers, Slim Smith, Jackie Opel and many more.
Powered by the finest in-house musicians working in Jamaica, whether it was The Skatalites, Jackie Mittoo’s Soul Brothers, The Sounds Dimension or The Soul Vendors, Studio One functioned as hit factory on the scale of Motown in the USA, shaping and defining reggae music for decades to come.
Singlehandedly Studio One’s founder Clement Dodd was able to create the most successful vertically-integrated record company that Jamaica had ever known with pressing plant, printers, studio, shops, and sound systems all running at once, with over 50 employees and hundreds of artists working with Studio One during this time.
Studio One Freedom Sounds tells the story of Studio One in the 1960s with a stunning set of ska, soul, rock steady and reggae killer tunes as well as informative sleevenotes and track-by-track info by Noel Hawks. The album is released as heavyweight double vinyl (+ free download code), deluxe CD and digital album.

Soul Jazz Records’ new ‘Studio One Dub Fire Special’ brings together 18 heavyweight dub cuts, all recorded at 13 Brentford Road in the 1970s.
Featuring a stellar selection of dub cuts to classic and foundation songs recorded at Studio One with music from the legendary in-house bands – The Sound Dimension, New Establishment, Soul Defenders and Brentford All-Stars – featuring the likes of reggae’s finest musicians - Jackie Mittoo, Leroy Sibbles, Cedric Brooks, Freddie McGregor and more.
These fresh dub sounds employed the mighty mixing desk skills of The Dub Specialist, aka Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd, Sylvan Morris and Scientist to full effect. Studio One Dub Fire Special features our latest chapter of raw, stripped-down bass and drum sounds direct from Studio One, ‘the University of Reggae’.

Soul Jazz Records’ new ‘Studio One Dub Fire Special’ brings together 18 heavyweight dub cuts, all recorded at 13 Brentford Road in the 1970s.
Featuring a stellar selection of dub cuts to classic and foundation songs recorded at Studio One with music from the legendary in-house bands – The Sound Dimension, New Establishment, Soul Defenders and Brentford All-Stars – featuring the likes of reggae’s finest musicians - Jackie Mittoo, Leroy Sibbles, Cedric Brooks, Freddie McGregor and more.
These fresh dub sounds employed the mighty mixing desk skills of The Dub Specialist, aka Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd, Sylvan Morris and Scientist to full effect. Studio One Dub Fire Special features our latest chapter of raw, stripped-down bass and drum sounds direct from Studio One, ‘the University of Reggae’.

This is the second installment of deep roots Rastafarian reggae at Studio One and features classic music from some of the most important figures in reggae music – Alton Ellis, The Heptones, Jackie Mittoo, The Gladiators – alongside a host of rarities and little-known recordings, such as a truly rare Mystic Revelation of Rastafari seven-inch single, Willie William’s first ever recording ‘Calling’ and Horace Andy’s righteous (and equally rare) masterpiece ‘Illiteracy.’
Black Man’s Pride 2 extends the legacy of Studio One’s ground-breaking path in roots reggae which began at the end of the 1960s and continued throughout the 1970s. The album tells the story of how the rise of Studio One Records and the Rastafari movement were interconnected, through the adoption of the Rastafari faith by key reggae artists – everyone from the Skatalites and Wailers in the 1960s, major singers such as Alton Ellis and Horace Andy at the end of the decade, through to major roots artists such as The Gladiators in the 1970s – and how Clement Dodd consistently recorded this heavyweight roots music throughout Studio One’s history.
The sleeve-notes to this album also discuss the links between Rastafari and Studio One in time and place, noting how both the religion and Clement Dodd’s musical empire had their roots in the intense period of pre-independence Jamaica in Kingston, expanded in the 1960s following the visit of Haile Selassie in 1966, and how roots music then came to dominate reggae music in the early 1970s. Also discussed is how the outsider stance of both reggae music and the Rastafari movement relate back many hundreds of years to the original rebel stance of the Maroons, escaped slaves who set up self-sufficient enclaves in the hills of the Jamaican countryside.

Soul Jazz Records are releasing their new ‘Space Funk – Afro Futurist Electro Funk in Space 1976-84’, an intergalactic journey into black space, fuelled by funk, powered by computers.
‘Space Funk’ is a lovingly compiled collection of superb, rare and off-the-wall space funk and electro releases mostly released on small independent labels in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Reactors are reacting, boosters are boosting, pack your funk and shake your booty! Computer funk … makes you jump! This is the space funk program!

Soul Jazz Records new Sounds of the Universe: Art + Sound 2012-15 is a new album featuring a line-up of some of the most forward-thinking and progressive artists and producers working with electronic music around the world today.
This lovingly compiled collection features a stunning array of contemporary artists: Chicago’s Afro-futurist genius Hieroglyphic Being; Kassem Mosse (aka Gunnar Wendell/Siege of Troy), one of the most talked-about, respected artists in underground house and techno; out of Detroit’s Moodymann stable comes Andres; also featured is Los Angeles-based Ras G, associated with the Brainfeeder label established by fellow producer Flying Lotus; and many more!

Soul Jazz Records’ new release ‘Soul of a Nation: Afro-Centric Visions in the Age of Black Power’ is released in conjunction with a major worldwide art exhibition, Soul of A Nation: Art in the The Age of Black Power which takes place at the Tate Modern, London, UK (July-Oct 2017) and The Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA.
The album shows how the ideals of the civil rights movement, black power and black nationalism influenced the evolvement of radical African-American music in the United States of America in the intensely political and revolutionary period at the end of the 1960s following the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and the rise of the Black Panther party.
Featuring groundbreaking artists such as Gil Scott-Heron, Roy Ayers, Don Cherry, Oneness of Juju, Sarah Webster Fabio, Horace Tapscott, Phil Ranelin and many others, Soul of A Nation shows how political themes led to the rise of ‘conscious’ black music as new afro-centric styles combined the musical radicalism and spirituality of John Coltrane and radical avant-garde jazz music alongside the intense funk and soul of James Brown and Aretha Franklin and the urban poetry and proto-rap of the streets.
The Soul of a Nation exhibition draws on the links between Black art forms – art, music, poetry - and how they came together during the civil rights and black power era as part of the wider black arts movement across the United States.
Iconic African-Amercian revolutionary figures such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Angela Davis, John Coltrane, Muhammad Ali all appear in the radical artworks of Barkley L. Hendricks, Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Lorraine O’Grady and Betye Saar.
A selection of original radical jazz record sleeves artworks which appear in Soul Jazz Records’ earlier groundbreaking Freedom, Rhythm and Sound – Revolutionary Jazz Original Cover Art book will also be on show at the Tate, London throughout the exhibition. The Freedom, Rhythm and Sound book is also newly back-in-print in conjunction with this major exhibition and the release of the Soul of a Nation album.
Stuart Baker (founder of Soul Jazz Records) will appear on the panel of Jazz for Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power discussion at the gallery as part of the show.
Soul of a Nation comes with extensive sleeve-notes and exclusive photography in a large 36-page outsize booklet and slipcase. Double gatefold vinyl album edition comes with full colour inners + bonus download code and includes full sleeve-notes/photography.

Soul Jazz Records’ Nigeria Soul Power 70 album showcases the influence of funk, rock and disco on Nigerian music during the 1970s. Originally released as a now-long-out-of-print collectors’ 7” RSD box, this fully expanded album release now also includes extra tracks from Sonny Okosuns, Wings, Chief Kollington Ayinla and more.
While for many people the fusion of funk and jazz music with Nigerian rhythms and aesthetics began with Fela Kuti and his afro-beat sound, in fact this can be traced further back to the phenomena of the 1960s Nigerian artists and house bands in nightclubs and hotels who interpreted US soul and pop music with a local flavour and none more so than Geraldo Pino, the ‘African James Brown’ who features heavily in this collection. Other similarly inspired Nigerian funk and soul artists featured here included Tony Grey and his Ozimba Messengers and Don Bruce and The Angels.
Nigeria Soul Power 70 includes a number of tracks from the group Wings originally known as BAF (Biafran Air Force) Wings, an army band formed during the Biafran civil war in Nigeria. The groups’ heavy mixture of funk, rock and African styles was popular among many Nigerian groups at the time.
Beneath the shadow of the few Nigerian artists who signed international recording deals in the 1970s – Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade, Chief Ebenezer Obey – lies of vast wealth of largely undiscovered musical transmutation and cultural cross-pollination, and included here are heavy afro-funk/rock and disco tracks from artists such as the legendary Sonny Okosuns as well as rare cuts from little-known outside of Nigeria - groups such as Colomach and MFB. Most of these obscure artists signed to major labels in Nigeria in the commercial slipstream that opened up as Philips, Decca and EMI tried to emulate the international success of the big three international Nigerian artists.
Finally featured here is Kollington Ayinla, one of the co-founders of Nigerian Fuji music, who gives us perhaps the heaviest of all tracks on this album. Ayinla is the great moderniser of the Fuji sound and in the late 1970s began adding Bata drums and synthesizers to his authentic music to create a powerful and heavy new fusion of traditional and modernist aesthetics, embracing both new technology and experimentation while rooted firmly in Nigerian historical lineage.

Soul Jazz Records’ new Nigeria Soul Fever is their first release to explore the vast wealth of Nigerian music recorded in the 1970s. The new album comes with introductory sleeve-notes by Bill Brewster (author of Last Night A DJ Saved My Life).
Packed-full with Afro-Funk, Disco and Boogie all from Nigeria, this triple album/double CD set brings together a stunning collection of diverse West African sounds. Whilst a small handful of the artists featured (Joni Haastrup, Tee Mac, Christy Essien) have seen the light of day outside Africa, this is essentially a collection of killer tracks by an array of artists completely unknown outside of Nigeria. Artists such as Don Bruce & The Angels, Akin Richards & The Executives, Angela Starr, Jimmy Sherry & The Music Agents. It’s no surprise that these records are extremely rare and expensive to buy individually so this album will save you going broke trying to find them.
These recordings were made at a time when Nigeria’s trade restrictions banned imported records. Whilst new musical trends (such as American soul, funk, disco etc) entered and influenced the country, the local music scene remained just that – local. Consequently, these recordings remain practically unknown to anyone outside of the country.

Soul Jazz Records’ new Nigeria Soul Fever is their first release to explore the vast wealth of Nigerian music recorded in the 1970s. The new album comes with introductory sleeve-notes by Bill Brewster (author of Last Night A DJ Saved My Life).
Packed-full with Afro-Funk, Disco and Boogie all from Nigeria, this triple album/double CD set brings together a stunning collection of diverse West African sounds. Whilst a small handful of the artists featured (Joni Haastrup, Tee Mac, Christy Essien) have seen the light of day outside Africa, this is essentially a collection of killer tracks by an array of artists completely unknown outside of Nigeria. Artists such as Don Bruce & The Angels, Akin Richards & The Executives, Angela Starr, Jimmy Sherry & The Music Agents. It’s no surprise that these records are extremely rare and expensive to buy individually so this album will save you going broke trying to find them.
These recordings were made at a time when Nigeria’s trade restrictions banned imported records. Whilst new musical trends (such as American soul, funk, disco etc) entered and influenced the country, the local music scene remained just that – local. Consequently, these recordings remain practically unknown to anyone outside of the country.

Soul Jazz Records’ new album ‘Kaleidoscope – New Spirits Known and Unknown’ brings together many of the ground-breaking artists involved in the new jazz scene that has developed in the UK over the last few years. Featured artists include Matthew Halsall, Yazmin Lacey, Ill Considered, Tenderlonious, Theon Cross, Emma-Jean Thackray and many, many more in this ground-breaking release. As well as sharing a pioneering spirit in these new artists’ approach to frontier-crossing musical boundaries, a further theme of this album is that many also share a determination to independent practices - and most of these artists’ recordings featured here are either self-published or released on independent labels. While the attention of this new wave of jazz artists has up until now has been London-based, this album shows how this movement is spread across the whole of Britain (and indeed beyond). ‘Kaleidoscope – New Spirits Known and Unknown’ shows that while there is commonality in these artists approach to music, there is a wide variety of styles – from deep spiritual jazz, electronic experimentalisation, punk-edged funk, uplifting modal righteousness, deep soulful vocals and much more. Soul Jazz Records’ new release comes as a superb one-off pressing special deluxe triple album edition which comes with a bonus limited-edition single, a standard triple album, and a deluxe double CD pack. This album also comes with extensive sleevenotes, artist interviews and exclusive photography. Soul Jazz records are also releasing an exclusive one-off pressing double-headed 12” single featuring Theon Cross and Pokus released on the same day as the ‘Kaleidoscope’ album release.

Soul Jazz Records’ new album ‘Kaleidoscope – New Spirits Known and Unknown’ brings together many of the ground-breaking artists involved in the new jazz scene that has developed in the UK over the last few years. Featured artists include Matthew Halsall, Yazmin Lacey, Ill Considered, Tenderlonious, Theon Cross, Emma-Jean Thackray and many, many more in this ground-breaking release.

As well as sharing a pioneering spirit in these new artists’ approach to frontier-crossing musical boundaries, a further theme of this album is that many also share a determination to independent practices - and most of these artists’ recordings featured here are either self-published or released on independent labels. While the attention of this new wave of jazz artists has up until now has been London-based, this album shows how this movement is spread across the whole of Britain (and indeed beyond).

‘Kaleidoscope – New Spirits Known and Unknown’ shows that while there is commonality in these artists approach to music, there is a wide variety of styles – from deep spiritual jazz, electronic experimentalisation, punk-edged funk, uplifting modal righteousness, deep soulful vocals and much more.

Soul Jazz Records’ new release comes as a superb one-off pressing special deluxe triple album edition which comes with a bonus limited-edition single, a standard triple album, and a deluxe double CD pack. This album also comes with extensive sleevenotes, artist interviews and exclusive photography.

Soul Jazz records are also releasing an exclusive one-off pressing double-headed 12” single featuring Theon Cross and Pokus released on the same day as the ‘Kaleidoscope’ album release.

First released in 2001, this album is fully remastered, remade and presented once more in its entirety and features A Certain Ratio, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, The Human League, The Pop Group, Gang of Four, The Slits, 23 Skidoo and This Heat.As Muzik magazine noted on its initial release "In The Beginning" is a choice selection from the fertile post-punk period when bands thought nothing of combining politics and philosophy with imported dance rhythms and edgy industrial angst.The bands featured come (mostly) from the then bleak post-industrial North of England - Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds as well as Bristol and London, and yet all show a fascination with black American rhythms and an experimentation in sound that was completely unique at the time.

This album is the rarest of Soul Jazz's Deutsche Elektronische Musik series! Out-of print since its initial release over 8 years ago and not reissued, it features a monster 2 and ahalf hours of music! Very Limited Edition Super Deluxe Heavyweight Box Collectors' Edition (includes 4 LP + Insert + 2 Art prints + individual inners + download) + excellent extensive sleevenotes (by David Stubbs, writer for Wire/Guardian and author of the definitive 'Krautrock' book) + lots of exclusive photos. This is a one-off pressing of 2,000 copies worldwide.

A definitive guide to Dancehall Reggae! Over 30 killer tracks from Yellowman, Eek a Mouse, Gregory Isaacs, Tenor Saw and loads more.

Coxsone’s Music is a stunning new 3-CD/two separate double LP (+ free download) collection featuring over two and half hours of early Jamaican proto-ska, rhythm and blues, jazz, rastafari and gospel music – charting the earliest recordings produced by Clement Dodd, in the years before he launched the mighty Studio One Records, brought together here for the first time ever.
Clement Dodd’s Sir Coxsone The Downbeat Soundsystem ruled Kingston’s dancehalls during this era and these recordings strongly reflect the influences of American rhythm and blues and jump jazz on Jamaican music fans.
By the time the new record company formed in Brentford Road, Kingston in 1963, the young Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd had already managed to release an incredible wealth of recordings by the talented musicians and artists on the island of Jamaica and this collection reflects just that:
Featuring Don Drummond, Roland Alphonso, Derrick Harriott, Owen Gray, Clancy Eccles, Count Ossie, Monty Alexander, The Blues Busters, Ernest Ranglin, Rico Rodriguez and many, many more all captured here in their formative early years.
Before Studio One, Clement Dodd released this music on a variety of his early record labels such as Worldisc, All Stars, Coxsone, D Darling (named after Coxsone’s mother, who received a production credit on the label), Muzik City (named after Dodd’s record store on East Queen’s Street), Port O Jam, Supreme and Sensational.
Sleevenotes to this collection are by Studio One authority Rob Chapman, author of the Never Grow Old and Downbeat Special books cataloguing the many recordings of the label.

Soul Jazz Records’ new Boombox 2 is a new selection of early rap music from the period 1979-83, with barely a household name in sight. Featured here are some the earliest hip-hop records that came out of New York City following the enormous commercial success of the first ever rap record, ‘Rapper’s Delight’ by the Sugarhill Gang, in September 1979. Artists and producers alike tried to jump aboard the new commercial possibilities of hip-hop. By the end of the year there were 30 hip-hop singles, all released by independent New York labels. The following year there were over 100 more, and so on.
Boombox 2 tells the story of how hip-hop went from its evolutionary roots in the Bronx through DJs Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa through to its second phase where veteran music producers – Paul Winley, Peter Brown, Joe Robinson and others – all based in Harlem, began to put rap on vinyl for the first time.
Harlem is also where the separate worlds of disco and hip-hop met through the styles and influence of earlier ‘uptown’ DJs - DJ Hollywood and Eddie Cheba. In similar fashion these veteran Harlem-based producers instinctively tapped into a long lineage of African-American rhythm and blues, soul and disco.
Boombox 2 is a triple-vinyl set (+ download code) LP and double CD pack that features extensive text, exclusive interviews and stunning photography by Jamel Shabazz, Martha Cooper and others.

Soul Jazz Records’ new Black Riot: Early Jungle, Rave and Hardcore is a brand new collection of heavyweight ragga-influenced hardcore jungle tracks from the early 1990s. Dark and heavy!
Featuring classic and seminal tracks from the likes of Levictus and Krome &Time, alongside a host of rare and little-known ragga & junglist hardcore tunes from the likes of Babylon Timewarp’s hypnotic Durban Poison, Rhythm for Reasons’ mad ‘The Smokers Rhythm’, The Freaky rave-y breakbeat sound of ‘Time and Age,’ Trip One’s super dark ‘Snowball’ and loads more!
Expect super heavy basslines, equally heavy twisted Amen drum loops, even heavier ragga vocals! Original jungle style – roots and culture – from the earliest days of drum and bass.
Included with the first edition of the Black Riot vinyl and CD is a very limited-edition free graphic mini-novel “Black Riot: The Mysterons save Planet Earth from the Xatheroid Angels.” This is the third collaboration between writer Paulo Parisi and Soul Jazz Records. This new graphic story continues the story of black electronic dance music – this time set in London circa 1992 and continues onwards from Soul Jazz’s earlier ‘Invasion of the Killer Mysterons’ (Jamaican electronic dub, co-compiled by Kevin Martin (The Bug)) and ‘Mysterons Invade the Jackin’ Zone’ (about Chicago Acid & Experimental House 1986-93).

Soul Jazz Records new ‘Apala: Apala Groups in Nigeria 1964-69’ is the first ever collection of Apala music ever to be released outside of Nigeria.
The album focusses on a wide selection of recordings made in Nigeria in the 1960s, a time when Apala music was at the height of its popularity. Apala is a deeply rhythmical, hypnotic and powerful musical style that combines the striking nasal-style vocals and traditions of Islamic music, the Agidigbo (thumb piano), and the equally powerful drumming and percussion rhythms and techniques of the Yoruba of Nigeria.
The most significant figure in Apala music is undoubtedly Haruna Ishola who features throughout this album. Ishola holds an almost mythological status in his role as populariser of Apala music in Nigeria. Ishola’s singing was believed to be so powerful that, without proper restraint, it could kill the recipient of his music.
Apala is a popular music that also functioned as a form of cultural resistance – Apala music involved no western instrumentation and is sung in the Yoruba language, its aesthetic an implicit cultural rejection of the British Empire’s colonial rule over Nigeria which lasted from 1901 until independence in 1960.
Apala music was popular and widely accepted in Nigeria due to its philosophical and profound lyrical content alongside the complex rhythmic patterns of this heavily percussive style, which highlighted many of the percussion instruments of south-west Nigeria.
Apala is one of a number of popular urban styles of music that came out of Nigeria in the 20th century and sits alongside the more well-known (in the West) styles of Fuji, Highlife, Juju and Afrobeat. Of these modern forms Apala remains perhaps the most ‘roots’ style (sometimes described as ‘neo-traditional’) due to the authenticity of its sound. It has similar Islamic roots to other neo-traditional styles of Nigeria – including Waka and Sakara – examples of which are also included on this collection contextualising the music of Apala.
These recordings were originally made and released locally by Decca and EMI Records as well as a variety of independent labels in Nigeria and have never been released outside of the country before. Soul Jazz Records are releasing this album as a deluxe double gatefold vinyl (+ download code), CD, slipcase and booklet, both containing full text and photography.