The city born singer songwriter’s global hit Rewind sits alongside songs by everyone from Stormzy to Boney M in the Windrush Top 20.
Craig’s dad George, who played bass in celebrated local band Ebony Rockers, was a member of the windrush generation, people who emigrated from Caribbean countries to the UK between 1948 and 1971. They arrived in ports including Southampton, pictured.
Acts ranging from UB40 and Beverley Knight to ‘king of calypso’ Lord Kitchener and 50s pianist Winifred Atwell, the first black woman with a UK number 1, appear on the newly-released Windrush 75 Network playlist, available on Spotify.
The Top 20 playlist has been compiled by the Windrush 75 Network – #Windrush75 – which brings organisations together to celebrate the anniversary on 22 June.
And it showcases the huge contribution made to UK music by the Windrush generation, their descendants and those who followed from across the Commonwealth over the past 75 years, helping shape British popular culture.
The chronological list, which places Craig David’s 1999 smash hit Rewind at number 16, includes tracks from 1948 to 2021, starting with Lord Kitchener, who performed a specially-written song – London Is the Place for Me – live on a report for Pathé News as he stepped off the HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in 1948.
The Top 20 concludes with Islington-born rapper and Ivor Novello Awards-winner Little Simz, singing Woman.
The playlist was overseen by Mykaell Riley, director of the Black Music Research Unit and PI for Bass Culture Research at the University of Westminster.
Riley was a founder member of British 70s reggae band Steel Pulse – the first non-Jamaican act to win a Grammy for Best Reggae Album.
He said: “It’s a great list which scratches the surface of a hugely important cultural contribution. In many ways, it’s a teaser to what lies beyond the beats, melodies and songs that have found their way into so many lives.”