Underground Reggae Is Still Alive in Flatbush Brooklyn

Photos by Kristin Laughter

“Holy shit, pretty girls dance when you play this,” said Jeremy “Mush1” Mushlin as he recounted playing the trumpet while cheerleaders danced to his high school marching band. A couple decades later, and after a long career in New York’s underground reggae scene, Mush1 is a little less surprised by his listeners’ reactions.

“People still love this music. People still dance to it. It's very powerful,” said Mush1, 43, a tall Jewish trumpet player originally from Boston.

Mush1 has been throwing an underground reggae dance party in Flatbush for about seven years, and has been living in the Caribbean-populated neighborhood for ten. Despite the abundance of old school reggae artists living or hanging out there, many of who started playing in Jamaica, few Flatbush venues showcase reggae.

“On a nice summer day, you can walk down Flatbush or Church Avenue and you run into veteran artists. Flatbush is like Jamaica itself,” said Screechy Dan, 51, originally from Kingston, Jamaica. Screechy Dan is most known for his 1993 dancehall ode to women wearing tiny shorts, “Pose Off,” and started singing in Mush1's current project, Top Shotta Band, after he found himself hanging out at a rehearsal in 2012. “I took the mic and the rest was history,” he said, calling Mush1 a “magnet” of the local scene.

Artists have flocked to perform and spin records at Mush1’s packed basement dance party, whose location and name is undisclosable here, since it cannot psychically accommodate a larger audience than it already does.

“He's definitely kept a certain musical tradition. He found a lot of these Brooklyn dancehall guys and gave them a place to perform. He keeps the sound system alive. It's cool that he developed a scene,” said Dave Hillyard, 43, who plays tenor saxophone in Mush1's former band The Slackers.

photo by Ras Tayo

Mush1 moved to New York in 1993 to join The Slackers, when he and Hillyard founded its horn section. Their addition pushed the long-running band from ska/punk to a more traditional ska/reggae sound. But this style was still not as horn-focused as Mush1 wanted, and he left the band in 1999 to start bands like The Scorchers and Fireproof where, according to him, “the trumpet wasn't just three notes in the background.”

“People thought I was dropping out when I left The Slackers,” said Mush1. His excitement about collaborating with Jamaican artists was obvious as he then yelled, “and then my new band put out an album with Sister Nancy.” Sister Nancy sang the 1982 reggae anthem “Bam Bam,” and in 2001 Mush1 recorded and released a collaboration with her titled Sister Nancy Meets Fireproof.

Mush1 worked with another reggae legend in 2008, when he recorded and released an album for Lady Ann titled Bad Gyal Inna Dance. With her 1981 hit “Informer,” Lady Ann was the first female to have a No. 1 single in Jamaica.

Both of these records were made at Mush1's recording studio, record label office, and practice space: Al Paragus Headquarters. The space is located on the top floor of his Victorian home, where he lives with his wife and 6-year old daughter.

When Mush1 is not working his day job as an environmental quality review inspector, he is dedicating his time to reggae. And despite his commitment to bringing this community together, his own music is still the priority. “If there's only an hour, that hour is playing the trumpet,” he said.

Top Shotta Band featuring Screechy Dan will play live on Saturday, November 15 at Secret Project Robot Art Experiment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Mush1 also spins records every Tuesdays at 9 PM on his radio show Tunnel One, on WNYU 89.1 FM.