Windrush 75 mix: Tash LC

Can you tell us about your mix?

So this is an all vinyl (bar a few tunes) reggae / dub mix with some sprinklings of calypso too. These selections mainly span from the early 1960s to the '90s and features big choons like 'Tu Sheng Peng' and Jennifer Lara’s Lover’s anthem 'I Am In Love', as well as B-sides and instrumentals from Admiral Bailey and Dennis Bovell.

How does the mix reflect the legacy of Windrush?

The sounds in here reflect the wide variety of experiences and contributions in music by Jamaican artists. I chose to start off with one of the most iconic calypso tracks, 'London Is The Place For Me' by Lord Kitchener because it encapsulates the hope felt by so many Caribbeans as they arrived in England for the first time in search of opportunity and a better life. As we’ve seen in more recent years with the Windrush scandal, a lot of that hope was dissolved soon after arriving here and so this track always feels so poignant each time I hear it. There’s also moments of instrumental, radiant joy like Anthony Joseph’s 'Calypso Interlude' and The Golden Sunshine Steel Band’s 'Sunshine Steel', as well as playful moments like Dillinger's 'Natty Kung Fu'. It reflects a spectrum of decades of Jamaican musical evolution between artists who had set up home in the UK and those back in JA.

Can you tell us about some of the artists featured in the mix?

We’ve got some Bunny Wailer in here - an OG member of the Wailers with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh from the '70s. He had some wicked solo hits like 'Cool Runnings' which is in here, as well as loads of incredible albums with the Wailers. The last track in the mix is Brown Sugar’s 'Hello Stranger' which gives me goosebumps every time. They were a female British reggae trio who formed in 1976 made up of Pauline Catlin, Caron Wheeler and Carol Simms who only released one album 'Brown Sugar' in 1977 that's been re-released by Studio One. The Mighty Three's 'Africa Shall Stretch Forth Her Hand' album is also such a stunning dub record with vocals from Noel "Bunny" Brown, Carlton Gregory & Bernard Brown, and they were another one album band who created an unbelievably good debut that transports you to magical places.

Sign up for the Mixmag newsletter