Melodies International Presents Ariwa Sounds is a double compilation celebrating the output of Mad Professor’s Ariwa Sounds label from 1984 to 2026. The review finds that its broad range of reggae-related styles, from dub and roots to lovers rock and early grime-adjacent experiments, makes it a vivid portrait of the label’s collaborative and adventurous history.

Mad Professor, born Neil Fraser, established Ariwa in his Croydon home in the late 1970s, building a studio rather than furnishing a conventional living room. The collection includes artists such as Sister Nancy, Horace Andy and Sandra Cross, alongside tracks including Kofi’s Didn’t I, Aisha’s Can You Feel It and Mad Professor’s Six Million Dub; it is presented as neither a greatest-hits package nor a chronological survey.