“A bunch of outsiders”

“disturbing the comfortable, comforting the disturbed”

Iconic dub label founded around 1980 by producer Adrian Sherwood, working almost entirely under a collective mentality with members from seemingly disparate communities coming together to craft unique, genre-bending sound experiments. If you had to pin On-U Sound to a single genre, it would be dub reggae. But the label slips free of easy categorisation.

Home of the New Age Steppers, African Head Charge, Singers & Players and many more.

entr’acte Long-time On-U Sound collaborators Skip McDonald, Doug Wimbish and drummer Keith LeBlanc were the backbone of many hiphop hits on the Sugar Hill label, including “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five. For On-U Sound they formed the industrial/dub group Tackhead and performed on many albums on the label. Keith Leblanc’s record “No Sell Out” was one of the first sample-based releases. Skip McDonald formed Little Axe, his bluesdub band.