Trojan Records

The Beginning:
Although seemingly inconsequential at the time, July 28th 1967 proved to be a momentous date in the history of Jamaican music. For it was on that day that Chris Blackwell and Lee Gopthal from Island Records, one of the UK's leading record companies launched a label that would come to symbolise and forever be associated with the style that was to make Jamaica a musical superpower. The imprint was of course Trojan, a subidiary created specifically to showcase the productions of one of Jamaica's most popular and successful producers, Arthur "Duke" Reid, who himself had acquired the moniker from the make of the British-built seven-ton truck he had used to transport his powerful soundsystem around the island since the fifties. The company just took its name from Reid's sound system - The Trojan. Some eleven singles subsequently saw issue on the Island off-shoot over the six months immediately following its creation, but by the start of 1968, the company had pulled the plug, deciding their Treasure Isle imprint would suffice as the sole output for Duke Reid's material in the UK. Nonetheless, during its brief lifespan, the Trojan label had highlighted some of the finest music to emanate from Jamaica during the height of the Rocksteady era. The Trojan Story might well have ended there, with the label little more than a footnote in the annals of Island Records' illustrious history, and that it is not is due more to luck than forethought. Some seven months after its demise, Trojan was resurrected, altough this time around it was much more than just a minor, if respectable, Jamaican music label. Now it was a new dynamic company that over the coming years would dominate the Jamaican records market in the UK.

In the 60s and 70s Trojan did a major effort in spreading Reggae over the UK, licensing Jamaican releases as well as pushing their own UK acts.

The full Trojan catalogue was acquired by Sanctuary Records in 2001 and is now a part of the Universal Music Group.