Mafia & Fluxy
- Leroy "Mafia" Heywood
- David "Fluxy" Heywood
Band. Dancehall, reggae, roots
- Active
- 1977-present
- Also known as
- Mafia and Fluxy, Leroy Heywood, David Heywood, Leroy Mafia, Fluxy, The Instigators
Mafia & Fluxy, the brothers Leroy "Mafia" Heywood on bass and David "Fluxy" Heywood on drums, are the North London rhythm section that the Rough Guide calls the UK's premier bass and drums partnership, and one of the most in-demand rhythm sections of the ragga age, in Kingston as well as London. They taught themselves from records, and sometimes, Mafia says, "an artist will sing a song and we build the rhythm behind them."
They came up in the Instigators, a North London lovers rock band whose "We Ain't Been Getting Along" remains one of the genre's enduring records, and their own productions kept a rocksteady quality in their lovers rock; Leroy has also made albums as a singer. From the late 1980s they built riddims in Jamaica: for Donovan Germain at Penthouse, where their reworking of Aswad's "Promised Land" carried Wayne Wonder's "Hold On" and their riddims were among those behind Beres Hammond's A Love Affair, and, according to Colin Larkin, for Bunny Lee, King Jammy and Fatis Burrell.
At home they built the riddims for Papa Levi's Code of Practice, discovered the teenage deejay Glamma Kid in Tottenham, and supplied riddims to most of the British labels of the 1990s and after: Fashion, Saxon, Maximum Sound, Jet Star and the Mad Professor's Ariwa, as well as the new roots producers. They recorded Morgan Heritage's "Get On Board," and Luciano and Mikey General recorded for their label.
Last updated November 5, 2026
Connections
- Luciano (artist)
- Morgan Heritage (artist)
- Mikey General (artist)
- Bunny "Striker" Lee (session work)
- King Jammy (session work)
- Fatis Burrell (session work)
- Donovan Germain (session work)
- Beres Hammond (session work)
- Wayne Wonder (session work)
- Mad Professor (session work)
- Penthouse (session work)
Notes
- Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 396, 404.
- Angus Taylor, "Interview: Mafia and Fluxy," United Reggae, August 17, 2011, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n731/081711/interview-mafia-and-fluxy.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 396, 400.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 313, 320, 324. Wikipedia, citing Larkin, says they first went to Jamaica in 1987. "Mafia & Fluxy," Wikipedia, accessed October 7, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_%26_Fluxy.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 365-66, 399-400, 402, 404, 406, 409, 418, 420-21.
