James Harper with the sound system

IT began with lining up records in a basement bar in Kentish Town and now the Reggae Roast sound system play on stages in front of 20,000 people.

This weekend, the sound system DJs return to Camden with a new monthly Sunday afternoon session at the Camden Assembly in Chalk Farm Road – and, in many ways, it represents a return to their origins.

Kentish Town-based music producer James Harper, who is behind the sound system, began by providing bass-oriented vinyl to a pub lunch crowd 15 years ago.

“Reggae Roast started in 2007 as a Sunday event with food and Reggae – hence the name,” he recalls. “The concept was simple – serve good food with good music. As the evening progressed, it would turn into a dance. It proved super popular and by the third event over 700 people turned up and the bar ran out of alcohol.”

The formula was noted by promoters and they were booked to play for the Big Chill festival and at the BC’s King’s Cross venue. “From there, we leased a warehouse in Hackney and ran monthly events,” he says.

The next step was creating a label to put out the type of bass-heavy music they loved playing, as well as building a sound system to use – a key element in the music culture James was steeped in. Owning your own sound – and celebrating its power, tone and bass – is a badge of honour and James put some thought into what they wanted.

“Most reggae sound systems use scoops, a type of bass bin that sounds great and creates large amounts of bass,” he explains.

He started searching for one of his own and came across some images online of exactly what he wanted.

“I saw this crazy looking rig and was ‘Whoah! What the hell is that?’” he remembers. “It looked so different from anything I had seen before.”

James found Al Cree, the craftsman behind it, living on a barge in east London. “It was so clean and the bass was so deep. Scoops have a lot of bass, but they create a lot of distortion because of the way the air flows in and out of the boxes. These were a new design with minimal distortion, a cleaner sound and able to reproduce lower frequencies. It was the best sounding and looking system I had ever seen. The only downside was the size, which makes it a logistical nightmare – but when you see the look on people’s faces when they see and hear it, it’s all worthwhile.”

The system made its mark at festivals such as Glastonbury, Outlook and Bestival.

James looks back at how Kentish Town and his school, Acland Burghley, shaped his interest.
“Burghley was a melting pot,” he says. “Growing up there was a life lesson and taught me how to get on with anyone from any background.

“In the early 90s, it was a fantastic place to grow up as there was so much going on musically and north London was the epicentre of a lot of it. House and garage, jungle, hip hop was blowing up. Remember, these were all relatively new styles.

The Reggae Roast album cover

“These are all so well established now, it is hard to imagine the level of excitement we felt. Garage and jungle were uniquely British, so there was a feeling of identity associated. These styles were spawned from reggae and sound system culture. Without the sound systems that came over from the West Indies during the Windrush generation these scenes wouldn’t have emerged. So, although reggae wasn’t a British thing itself, it was what gave life to so many other musical styles that were traceable back to the reggae sound systems.”

With meaty speakers to play through, it was time for Reggae Roast to start producing their own music. Working with musician Matt Lee, James’s output was such that the famous Trojan Label signed them.

“They hadn’t signed anyone new for over 30 years so it was a real honour to release our first album through them, as they were responsible for bringing reggae to the UK mainstream several decades earlier,” he says.

To call the music Reggae Roast produces reggae ignores the sub-genres the music has spawned. Instead, RR takes various influences and creates a contemporary, rootsy sound.

“It is a melting pot of bass music – reggae, dancehall, jungle and dubstep,” he says.

And the system’s pull is such they have persuaded legendary voices to sing for them, including Horace Andy and Johnny Clarke while in 2022 they joined UB40 on a 20-date tour across Europe.

Reggae continues to be considered rebel music – for all its global popularity, it carries an air of the underground. Across the UK, the culture is thriving, though is never mainstream.

“There are hundreds of custom-made sound systems in every corner of the country,” he says.

“It’s a DIY ethos of people building their own sound systems, putting on their own events and producing their own music to play.”

His older brother was a reggae collector, so he had been exposed to the genre and he noted jungle and dubstep borrowed heavily from the style.

“Many tracks had samples from old reggae tunes and were made fresh with new sounds and drums,” he says.

“I see these musical styles as progression. That’s what I try to do with Reggae Roast. We take influences from all forms of UK bass music and mash them into a reggae-influenced hybrid.”

The music relies on its bass line, so having a set of massive scoops to play through is vital.

“If you play on a sound system without much bass, you are not hearing the full tune,” he says. “It completely changes the experience when you have thumping bass. Anyone who has stood in front of a reggae sound system can tell you it’s a totally different experience to listening on your speakers at home, or even a standard club PA. You are cutting out lots of frequencies that make up the song. Its like looking at Van Gogh with half of the colours taken away. It’s not how the music is meant to be experienced.”

It is why the sound system matters so much in reggae culture, he adds, and when it flows, the effect is astonishing.

“When the bass is pumping it’s a spiritual experience,” says James.

“All the people there are having the same frequencies vibrating your body at the same time. That brings people together. It unites us, and is powerful and addictive. In a world where there is so much conflict and division, in front of the sound system everyone is united by a higher force – the music.”

• Reggae Roast appear at the Camden Assembly, Chalk Farm Road, on Sunday, April 9, with special guests including Ed Solo and The Ragga Twins. See www.reggaeroast.co.uk