Rudeboy: The Story Of Trojan Records

★★★★ Dir: Nicolas Jack Davies PULSE FILMS. BR/DVD

The iconic British reggae label and its legacy documented.

Spinning off from Island Records in the late ’60s, Trojan quickly became the home of reggae in Britain, helping Jamaican music to become an accepted part of popular culture during a time of fraught racial tension. This thoughtful film traces its origins in Jamaica and highlights the dramatic impact it made in the colonial ‘Mother Country’. The testimony of artists such as Dandy Livingston, Marcia Griffiths, Freddie Notes, The Pioneers, and producer Bunny Lee helps us understand what happened and why, with Don Letts and Pauline Black providing cultural context, along with label staffers Rob Bell and David Betteridge. Although recreated scenes of the 1960s lack credibility in places, and there is nothing of the label’s rebirth after an initial mid-’70s collapse, the music, and the stories behind it, carry the film, highlighting that reggae broke down race barriers.