Island Records was founded in Jamaica on 4 July 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall and Leslie Kong, and financed by Stanley Borden from RKO.

The 1964 hit, "My Boy Lollipop", sung by Jamaican singer Millie Small (1947–2020), was the label's first success in the UK and led to a world tour that also involved Blackwell.

[3] Suzette Newman has been a close colleague of Chris Blackwell's since working together in the early days of Island Records, and while there she ran the Mango world music label.

[7] Blackwell relocated to England in May 1962 to garner greater levels of attention after the local Jamaican sound systems proved to be overwhelmingly successful.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, they were a major label in England with artists including Roxy Music, King Crimson, Sparks, Traffic, the Wailers, Cat Stevens, Steve Winwood and many others.

[12] Accompanied by Paul Douglas and Radcliffe "Dougie" Bryan in studio, Jackson explained: We're all original members of Toots and the Maytals band.

[12]In 1969, Island Records acquired a deconsecrated 17th century church building at 8-10 Basing Street, in the Ladbroke Grove area of Notting Hill in West London.

The Maytals had recently added a full-time backing band that included drummer Paul Douglas and bassist Jackie Jackson, and Chris Blackwell joined the group in the studio as a co-producer for the album.

[14] Music critic Lester Bangs described the album in Stereo Review as "perfection, the most exciting and diversified set of reggae tunes by a single artist yet released.

[18] In August 1987, the company was not able to pay US$5 million that it owed to U2 in royalties for The Joshua Tree album, as it had diverted the funds to finance several unsuccessful films.

[20] The label's 4th & Broadway division, operating since the mid-1980s, achieved some success marketing alternative hip hop and dance-pop music with artists such as Eric B. and Rakim and the Stereo MCs.

Mango (Chaka Demus and Pliers) was another Island dance-oriented subsidiary, while it was singer Robert Palmer who achieved worldwide success with the rock song "Addicted to Love" in 1986.

[23] Blackwell left to found the Palm Pictures company and run a chain of boutique hotels in Miami, US and the Caribbean, including the very exclusive Goldeneye, once the Jamaican home of James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

Among the artists who appeared were Sly & Robbie, Ernest Ranglin, Paul Weller, The Compass Point All Stars, The I Threes, Aswad, Kid Creole & the Coconuts, Grace Jones, Steel Pulse, Keane, Tom Tom Club, Toots & The Maytals, The Mighty Diamonds, Yusuf Islam/ Cat Stevens, Bombay Bicycle Club, Baaba Maal and U2.

[28] Another Island 50 tribute event was held over four nights at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, with Marianne Faithfull, Grace Jones and Sly & Robbie all appearing, and Chris Blackwell holding a Question & Answer session.

The years that followed saw fresh success for a number of established acts, including PJ Harvey, Keane, Paul Weller and Bombay Bicycle Club and an exciting wave of new signings.

2016 proved a particularly successful year for the label in the UK: over a seven-week period between April and June, four separate Island acts spent at least one week at number one.

The albums concerned were PJ Harvey's The Hope Six Demolition Project, Drake's Views (which spent two weeks at number one), Ariana Grande's Dangerous Woman and Catfish & The Bottlemen's The Ride.

Heralded as standard bearers for a vibrant new wave of folkish, countrified rock, their debut album, Sigh No More, sold two million, reaching number two in Britain and America.

He returned to the label in 2008 and began an outstanding trilogy of releases that contained some of his strongest solo work 22 Dreams (2008), the Mercury Music Prize-nominated Wake Up The Nation (2010) and Sonik Kicks (2012).

North London quartet Bombay Bicycle Club also released four albums on Island, with each one signalling a change of direction: the indie-rock of 2009's I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose paved the way for 2010's folkier Flaws, the modern rock of 2011's A Different Kind Of Fix and the broad-based invention of 2014's So Long, See You Tomorrow.

To crown a record-breaking year, Drake was named the world's best-selling recording artist of 2016 by international music industry organisation IFPI in February 2017.

Its success was the culmination of a strategy that had seen Island build his UK profile over a four-year period that dated from his 2013 studio album Kiss Land.

The Jamaican singer, rapper and songwriter released "No Lie" (featuring the Youngest English-Albanian Dua Lipa), his first single for Island, in November 2016.

Signed to Island via a licensing deal with independent label PMR, Disclosure were formed by two brothers from Reigate in Surrey, Guy and Howard Lawrence.

The duo discovered the joys of nineties house, techno and two-step garage while studying music production at college, and went on to enjoy success with their two Island albums Settle (2013) and Caracal (2015), making extensive use of an array of guest vocalists including Sam Smith, Jamie Woon, Eliza Doolittle, Lorde and Gregory Porter.

One of the acts who guested on Settle was AlunaGeorge, a boy-girl duo from London (singer Aluna Francis and musician and producer George Reid), who released their debut album, Body Music, on Island in 2013.

A soulful singer-songwriter from Brixton, Ware was nominated for the 2012 Mercury Music Prize with her smooth debut album, Devotion, and enjoyed further success with 2014's Tough Love.

Another Island act to enjoy a significant breakthrough was Yorkshire singer John Newman, who topped the UK charts with his first solo single, "Love Me Again", and his debut album Tribute.