Vincent "Randy" Chin

Vincent " Randy " Chin ( born October 3, 1937 in Kingston, † February 2nd 2003 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States) was a Jamaican record producer and entrepreneur. He founded the label VP Records

Life

Vincent Chin was born the son of a in the 1920s from China immigrated to Jamaica carpenter on October 3, 1937 in Kingston. As a young man he worked since the early 1950s as a maintenance worker for jukeboxes in the service of the Syrian- Jamaican entrepreneur Isaac Issa. To this activity included the replacement of the plates. Chin was living at the time with his family in Kingston district Vineyard Town. He then opened in 1958 at the corner of East and Tower Street in Downtown Kingston the record store Randy 's Records and sold initially to Retired U.S. rhythm-and - blues singles from the jukeboxes, which he had collected, instead of throwing them away. The name of the business was inspired by a record store from Tennessee, who sponsored a popular rhythm-and - blues radio show.

Already at the end of the decade Chin began to produce and bring out recordings of Jamaican musicians such as Alton Ellis and Eddie Perkins. Although plates were in previous years already been produced in Jamaica, but the taste of tourists and the overseas market tailored mostly Mento and Calypso. Chin was the first producer who aimed at the local Jamaican market. A first major success as a producer was the single Independent Jamaica from Lord Creator, which appeared in 1962, a few years earlier, founded in the year of the independence of Jamaica from the United Kingdom, Chris Blackwells label Iceland Records. As a result, created at the beginning of the 1960s more significant works in cooperation with Chin Toots and the Maytals and Skatalites.

Already in 1962 the record store was moved. At the new address 17 North Parade, on the one were the business premises be enlarged, also Vincent Chin built there in the following years with his wife Patricia in the floor above a first own recording studio with 4-track recorder on, the 1968 fully operational had. In the early 1970s, when established the reggae style, the Studio 17 had already developed into one of the more well-known in Kingston. 1970 and 1971 produced Lee Perry there dozens of songs by Bob Marley and the Wailers, and Gregory Isaacs and Dennis Brown doing there filming, and the American Johnny Nash. The studio developed continuously, soon had to a modern 16-track recorder, and Vincent Chin's eldest son Clive worked in the family business. This brought Augustus Pablo to the studio in 1973 his debut album This Is Augustus Pablo recorded there. The Chin family has been involved since 1969 also in the spread of Reggae to New York, where Vincent's brothers Victor and Keith led a branch of Randy 's Records. Throughout the 1970s, the company acquired a platen press and devoted himself to the sales department.

In the late 1970s drew Chin because of increasing political unrest in Jamaica with his family to New York, where in 1979 in Queens under the name of VP Records (V for Vincent, P for Patricia ), a new store was opened. The studio in Kingston has since no longer in operation, only the record store at North Parade remained until the late 1990s in their possession. Together with their children, Chris, Randy Junior and Angela Vincent and Patricia Chin VP developed the biggest reggae group in the U.S. and worldwide. In 1993, the label VP Records was officially founded, which is considered the most important reggae and dancehall label in the world ( See main article VP Records).

Since the early 2000s, Vincent Chin withdrew gradually from the management that he left his wife and sons. He moved to Miami, where he still built an offshoot of VP in Florida before his final retirement. Vincent Chin was suffering in his last years from diabetes, his health deteriorated still further. He died on February 2, 2003 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from the effects of his illness.