Ichiban Records

Ichiban Records was an American independent record label, founded in 1985 by John Abbey[1] and Nina Easton in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Wrap Records and Nastymix Records were some of its subsidiary labels. Urgent! Records and Mr. Henry Records of Houston were both distributed by Ichiban. Most of its discography is now out of print.[2] Besides recording a string of hip hop groups in later years, Ichiban originally specialised in blues and has also released albums by musicians such as Roy Ayers and Raful Neal. The catalog is now controlled by EMI, but nothing has been reissued since the label ceased operations.

The label's name "ichi-ban", is Japanese for "number one" or "first one", an expression commonly used in Japan to mean, the best.