The eagerly awaited full-length project by the Welsh-Jamaican singer and the legendary producer drops.
Welsh-Jamaican singer and media personality Aleighcia Scott releases her landmark debut album Windrush Baby, produced by sound system and production legend RoryStoneLove. Over half a decade in the making, Windrush Baby is a lovingly sculpted, deeply personal project that celebrates the JA-to-UK heritage of both Aleighcia and Rory, taking a musical journey from the blues dances and shubeens of Cardiff and London to the modern age.
Spanning ten tracks, Windrush Baby pairs Aleighcia’s emotionally overproof, uplifting voice with buoyant, authentic reggae rhythms played by Jamaica’s top musicians. The album’s title and striking cover art reference the arrival of Caribbean culture in the United Kingdom via the Empire Windrush ship 75 years ago.
“This album is so important to me” says Aleighcia of the project’s significance “It is an offering of everything I stand for both morally and creatively, whilst honouring the Windrush Generation that I stem from, who paved the way before me”.
“The album Windrush Baby reflects what my childhood was like growing up in south London” says Rory “I was listening to music that sound systems would play at my mum’s parties and my sister’s. I have tried my best to recreate that period.”
The result of multiple trips to Jamaica to record with Rory and the island’s premium session musician talent, the album shows many different sides to Aleighcia’s soulful, heartfelt brand of reggae. Aleighcia is naturally at home singing about matters of the heart: on defiant, sweetly scathing opener First Love, dreamy Studio One/Brook Benton update Do You, or daring, singjay departure Pretty Little Brown Thing. But she also invests the same passion in socially conscious topics, such as the heavy stepping jazzy Mr Big Shot and the bouncy Compass Point era Jamaican disco of Hey World. She even combines roots and lovers vibes, in the tradition of UK lovers rock groups like Brown Sugar, to the eddying flutes and soft trombone of the wistful Maybe.
“I have learnt so much as an artist whilst working with Rory” says Aleighcia on being inspired by her producer and his array of musicians, “and I’m so excited to share this project with the world”.
“I was so lucky to have Aleighcia Scott record on this album” says Rory. “She has that ‘girl next door approach’ and that hunger that is hard to find. She is open to any ideas and not thinking about herself but always putting the creation of the project first”.
Windrush Baby is out on all platforms.
TRACKLIST
01. First Love
02. Good Vibe
03. Do You
04. Hey World
05. In My Shoes
06. Pretty Little Brown Thing
07. Maybe
08. Mr. Big Shot
09. This Way
10. My Love