BBC HIT COMEDY DRAMA BOARDERS DROP THEIR ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK ALBUM

By Rishma • On What is New

First single ‘Gold’ by Joy & Jee Melod­ies drops today 24th April
Listen HERE

Announ­cing BOARDERS Ori­gin­al Soundtrack — a unique col­lec­tion of Black music from the next gen­er­a­tion of com­posers gradu­at­ing from Uni­ver­sity of Westminster’s Music BA Hons degree course, which is set for release on 2nd May, pre­ceded by first single ‘Gold’, a joy­ous, infec­tious Afropop/R&B banger by Joy & Jee Melod­ies which will drop on 24th April, dis­trib­uted by Warner Music.

The Uni­ver­sity of West­min­ster music degree course marks 30 years this year with this ground­break­ing pro­ject as the only degree course in the coun­try offer­ing real-time learn­ing, work place­ment and a cred­it on a high pro­file TV pro­gramme across two sea­sons. As a res­ult, the BOARDERS Ori­gin­al Soundtrack album is entirely com­posed by uni­ver­sity students.

The music for Stu­dio Lambert’s acclaimed series has been com­mis­sioned in a totally unique way with under­gradu­ate degree stu­dents at the very start of their music careers. Under the guid­ance of BOARDERS Music­al Dir­ect­or, respec­ted Black music expert and Asso­ci­ate Pro­fess­or at the Uni­ver­sity of West­min­ster Mykaell Riley, music stu­dents have writ­ten and com­posed all the ori­gin­al tracks for both sea­sons 1 and 2 of ‘BOARDERS’, bring­ing their fresh cre­ativ­ity to the sound of the hit show.

Across 18 tracks, the album spans Black music genres from afrobeats, R&B, soul, drill, rap, trap, afro swing, drum n bass, pop, techno and elec­tron­ica cre­ated by 12 com­posers: Ronn, Joseph Bur­nett (aka DOC­TOR JAY), Jew­el Appi­ah (aka Joy & Jee Melod­ies), Maisy New (aka Maisy Grace), Cor­rie Fraser, Cris­ti­an Jer­mane, Rodrigo Espino, Ryan Skid­more (aka Duc­cbod), Bal­aji Pil­lai (aka ChunkyKid), Sydney Yack (aka DAPHNE) and Jordan John­son (aka JJ) and fea­tured artist Pau­line Riou (aka paups).

The album has been mastered by respec­ted music pro­du­cer and engin­eer Ikon (Tems, Wizkid). Each of the 12 com­posers on the album have brought some­thing unique to the pro­ject, with a richly diverse com­bin­a­tion of back­grounds, tal­ents and music­al per­spect­ives, with a mix of male and female song­writers, vocal­ists, rap­pers and pro­gram­mers using a vari­ety of tech­no­lo­gies to cre­ate the killer ‘BOARDERS’ soundtrack.

Mykaell Riley, Dir­ect­or of the Black Music Research Unit (BMRU) at the Uni­ver­sity of West­min­ster, said “I’m thrilled to announce the release of the BOARDERS Ori­gin­al Soundtrack album with first single ‘Gold’ by Joy & Jee Melod­ies. The Uni­ver­sity of West­min­ster music degree course cham­pi­ons Black Brit­ish music into TV and film and this pro­ject is the first of its kind from any music degree course in the UK, where you have real time learn­ing and work place­ment with­in a hit BBC drama across two sea­sons, which by the end of the course, stu­dents can achieve an IMDB credit.

It’s been so reward­ing to see these 12 incred­ibly tal­en­ted music degree stu­dents and com­posers gain the invalu­able exper­i­ence and real-life chal­lenge of cre­at­ing a TV soundtrack for the hit show ‘BOARDERS’. We have had stu­dents con­trib­ut­ing from Europe, India, Canada, US, Mex­ico and the UK. Across sea­sons 1 and 2 soundtracks, there has been a whop­ping 34 IMDB cred­its in total for West­min­ster stu­dent com­posers. This is a huge achieve­ment for stu­dents who will enter the industry with recog­nised work on a major pro­duc­tion, and reflects the Music course’s com­mit­ment to equip­ping stu­dents with real-life exper­i­ence, skills and con­nec­tions required for a long-last­ing career in the music industry.”

Jew­el Appi­ah, of Joy & Jee Melod­ies, said “Being involved in the pro­duc­tion and writ­ing pro­cess for the music used in BOARDERS Sea­son 2 has been an amaz­ing exper­i­ence. It has helped me to grow cre­at­ively as a pro­du­cer and intro­duced me to the won­der­ful world of audi­ovisu­al work. ‘Gold’ is about just let­ting go and going with the flow, it’s about believ­ing in your­self and a high­er power. It’s an uplift­ing track. Being the first single released from the pro­ject is so spe­cial, par­tic­u­larly as it is fea­tured in the clos­ing scene of Sea­son 2, which makes it really memorable.”

Madeleine Sin­clair, Cre­at­ive Dir­ect­or for Stu­dio Lam­bert, Scrip­ted and Exec­ut­ive Pro­du­cer on BOARDERS said: “Music is such a huge part of Boarders and we’ve been so lucky to work with the bril­liant Mykaell Riley and his tal­en­ted stu­dents on two series. Daniel Lawrence Taylor (cre­at­or, writer and exec) and I are con­sist­ently amazed by the cal­ibre of the tracks pro­duced by the stu­dents and to have their music cel­eb­rated on this album from Warner Music is fant­ast­ic. We can’t wait to share the sound of BOARDERS with the fans!”

Lav­erne Thomas, Oper­a­tions Lead, Warner Music Africa added: “We are incred­ibly proud to be dis­trib­ut­ing the offi­cial soundtrack for BOARDERS sea­sons 1 and 2. This pro­ject is a test­a­ment to the power of music in storytelling, and we are thrilled to show­case the incred­ible tal­ent of up-and-com­ing musi­cians and music stu­dents from West­min­ster Uni­ver­sity. Their work brings a fresh and dynam­ic energy to the series, and we can­’t wait for audi­ences to exper­i­ence the soundtrack. The col­lab­or­a­tion rep­res­ents our ongo­ing com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing emer­ging artists and amp­li­fy­ing new voices in the industry.”

Pro­duced by Stu­dio Lam­bert (part of All3 Media), the second sea­son of the smash hit show BOARDERS returned to screens in Feb­ru­ary via BBC iPlay­er in the UK and will launch on Tubi in the US on 17th April. With a 100% rat­ing on Rot­ten Toma­toes, this award-win­ning show has received rave reviews. Cre­ated by award-win­ning writer Daniel Lawrence Taylor, BOARDERS fol­lows five tal­en­ted Black stu­dents from inner-city Lon­don who receive schol­ar­ships to attend élite board­ing school St Gilbert’s.

The Uni­ver­sity of West­min­ster music degree; Music: Per­form­ance, Pro­duc­tion and Busi­ness BA has cham­pioned a huge array of excep­tion­al tal­ent into careers in the music industry, with not­able artist alumni like Amir Amor (Rudi­ment­al), Bree Run­way and Estelle, and music industry fig­ures includ­ing Jake Nava (music video dir­ect­or Bey­once ‘Crazy In Love’ & ‘Single Ladies), Al Shux (pro­du­cer & writer Jay‑Z’s ‘Empire State Of Mind’, ‘All The Stars’ by Kendrick Lamar & SZA), Ben Wynter (AIM), Luke McGrel­lis (Uni­ver­sal Music Pub­lish­ing), Jin Jin (song­writer for Jess Glynne & Raye) and Remi Har­ris (music industry consultant).

Series 1 and 2 are avail­able to watch on BBC iPlay­er, and Series 1 is on Tubi in North Amer­ica and LATAM, with Series 2 released on 17th April 2025 and in Ger­many on ZDF. The show is pro­duced in asso­ci­ation with All3Media International.

Album track­list­ing:

Take A Step Back – Ronn
Gold – Joy & Jee Melodies
My Game – Maisy Grace, Cor­rie Fraser
Take My Num­ber – Cris­ti­an Jer­mane ft. Cheeks & Jon
Too Real 4 Ya – Cris­ti­an Jermane
JBE – DOC­TOR JAY
Unknown Memor­ies – Rodrigo Espino ft. paups
Pos­sib­il­ity – DAPHNE
It’s Alright – Duccbod
Sip My Cup – Ronn
Yep he Got It – Cor­rie Fraser
Neck Her – Ronn
Dark and Gray – Ronn, ChunkyKid
Risky Cash – Ronn
Dream­ing Of You – Hus­sein Boon
Skin – JJ
Wel­come – JJ
Nev­er Be The Same – DOC­TOR JAY

Fol­low on Ins­tagram @BoardersTV, @TheBMRU

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Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

About Rishma

Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless.