Adrian Sherwood

Rewind selector. Spin back to 1975 and you'll find the seventeen year old Sherwood at the helm of a label/distribution company by the name of Carib Gems. Along with his three partners they worked labels like Trojan, Virgin, Click and batches of Jamaican imports to the tune of a few thousand a week until a year later a few mistakes and some untimely bad debts left them bankrupt.

But whilst under the Carib Gems banner, Sherwood, who was selecting all the music that appeared on the label first encountered some of the characters with whom he would later work with. One of those was selections Prince Far I's legendary 'Psalms' album.

"That's how I met him" says Adrian" I went to Birmingham and I heard he wanted to see me. I got there and people were telling me he was in the next shop and he wanted to kill me! But I met him and we got on great."

Further labels followed in the shape of Hit Run, Creation Rebel and 4D Rhythms - for which Creation Rebel's much acclaimed Starship Africa first appeared as a limited pressing alongside 4D's one other act, The Mothmen, who crystalised into Simply Red. On-u's German label manager set up Echo Beach a label specialising in limited releases.