Songs that crossed over

Trojan Records, the UK reggae label, was sold in 1975 along with its parent company, Beat & Commercial, for 32,000 pounds, a low price given its catalogue of hits. The sale followed a cash crisis at B&C after its rock distribution client Charisma Records left for a major label, leaving B&C overextended on premises taken on for Trojan's own expansion; suppliers reportedly pulled credit soon after. The buyer, Marcel Rod, an entrepreneur who had made his money in budget classical records, ran Trojan afterward mainly as a repackager of its existing catalogue rather than a source of new material.

Jimmy Cliff is a Jamaican singer, songwriter and actor whose career began as a teenager and who became, alongside Bob Marley, the international face of reggae; his 1972 film "The Harder They Come" carried the music to an audience that had never otherwise have encountered it. Before his own career took off, teenage Cliff worked as an A&R scout for producer Leslie Kong alongside the senior singer Derrick Morgan, auditioning voices in West Kingston rum shops. In early 1962, Cliff, himself not yet fifteen, gave the sixteen-year-old Bob Marley his first professional audition and session, after Kong had already turned Marley away once without hearing him. Cliff picked three songs for release: "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", issued under the names "Robert Marley" and then "Bobby Martell" (Kong reportedly disliked how "Robert Marley" looked on a label), and a third, unreleased song called "Terror". In an interview with Bradley, Cliff recalled that ska was still an emerging option when he arrived in Kingston around 1960, but within about a year had taken over the dances even before radio caught up. He credited Prince Buster with changing studio practice industry-wide, as the first to have singers arrive with a complete song, full melody and lyrics, rather than a fragment for the bandleader to structure, giving vocalists far more control over the final arrangement; and he credited Chris Blackwell as the first to build proper wholesale distribution for Jamaican records, in contrast to producers previously supplying single shops by motorcycle courier, with artists gravitating to Blackwell partly because he paid better than most Jamaican producers.

1970 single written and recorded by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of the Melodians, setting Psalms 19 and 137 to reggae and Rastafari language; briefly kept off Jamaican radio over its Rastafari themes before becoming a foundation record, and reaching global audiences via the 1972 Harder They Come soundtrack album.

Ini Kamoze's 1994 crossover: a decade-old roots deejay reborn atop Salaam Remi's hip-hop-framed production, riding the "na na na" hook to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 — dancehall phrasing at the summit of American pop three years after Shabba's Grammy run opened the door.

"Many Rivers to Cross" is a Jimmy Cliff song from around 1969-1970 that became central to "The Harder They Come" (1972), the Jamaican film and soundtrack that introduced reggae to a wide international audience; the song's gospel-tinged ballad style, distinct from the album's more upbeat tracks, has made it one of Cliff's most enduringly covered recordings.

Founded in Jamaica in 1959 by Chris Blackwell and moved to London in 1962, Island carried Jamaican music to the world: Millie Small's "My Boy Lollipop" in 1964, the rock-market reframing of Bob Marley and the Wailers from Catch a Fire (1973), and international careers for Toots and the Maytals, Burning Spear and Black Uhuru. Blackwell sold the label to PolyGram in 1989; its catalogue remains reggae's widest global gateway.

Spanish Town-born singer (b. 1957) who first reached UK audiences with "World A Music" (1983) and became one of the few Jamaican artists ever to top the US Billboard Hot 100, when "Here Comes the Hotstepper" reached number one in 1995, a rare pop crossover for a dancehall-rooted record.

Desmond Dekker (Desmond Adolphus Dacres, 16 July 1941 - 25 May 2006) was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae singer who was among the first to bring the music to international charts. Recording with producer Leslie Kong and his backing group the Aces, he topped the UK chart with "Israelites" (1968), the first Jamaican-produced record to reach US and UK success, and also scored with "007 (Shanty Town)" and "It Mek.".

Desmond Dekker's 1969 follow-up to "Israelites": another Leslie Kong production into the UK top ten, its title Jamaican speech unapologetically intact — proof the breakthrough was a career, not an accident.

The Melodians were a rocksteady vocal group formed in Kingston's Greenwich Town area in 1963 by Tony Brevett, Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton. Recording for producers including Coxsone Dodd, Duke Reid and Leslie Kong, they are best known for "Sweet Sensation" and "Rivers of Babylon," the latter adapted from Psalm 137 and later a global hit via the film The Harder They Come and Boney M's cover. Lead singer Brent Dowe (1946–2006) co-wrote several of the group's signature songs.