VP Records’ Pat Chin Shares 60 Year Journey In Jamaican Music

VP Records co-founder Pat Chin was a recent guest on The Breakfast Club where she recounted her trailblazing journey as the matriarch of Jamaican music to hosts Charlamagne Tha God, Angela Yee and DJ Envy. Born Dorothy Patricia Williams, Miss Pat, as she’s affectionately called, is inextricably linked to the island’s long and lively recording history spanning ska, rocksteady, dub and reggae. 

While promoting her new book Miss Pat – My Reggae Music Journey, From Mento, Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae To Dancehall, she revealed how the largest independent record label in the world was bolstered by her behind the scenes efforts. She’s as much an avid fan as she is the revered first lady of the genre; as DJ Kool Herc, the Jamaican founding father of hip hop put it: “What Berry Gordy was to Motown, Patricia Chin is to VP Records and the reggae industry.”

Miss Pat and her late husband Vincent ‘Randy’ Chin founded the infamous Randy’s Records in Kingston in 1958, right when Jamaica’s music scene was taking off. They stocked the store with the old jukebox records sourced from Vincent’s maintenance job, and then set up another famed fixture of Jamaica’s music scene, Studio 17.

“From selling jukebox records, we started to produce our own music and also had a studio. We were very successful in the studio, we did mixing, mastering, cutting the acetate and they could come downstairs and listen to the records being played. So we got first hand information about the song and that was a great asset for us,” Miss Pat said.

Among the classic reggae albums recorded at Studio 17 were The Wailers’ Soul Rebel, Burning Spear’s Marcus Garvey and Peter Tosh’s Equal Rights. Though she remembers the 60’s and 70’s as “an exciting time” for the couple, memories of a volatile climate, which ultimately spurred their departure from the island, were just as fresh. 

“I left Jamaica in 1977 because we were going through political unrest and we took the kids with us. It was very dangerous,” she began. “I remember with the riots and things we had to shut down the shutters 2-3 times a day, everybody would come in until the riots were over, then we’d open back. We just felt we couldn’t live that way. There was no fun doing business. We chose Jamaica (Queens) because it reminded us so much of Jamaica,” the 83-year-old said.

Once they’d relocated, the family started from scratch: selling reggae recordings to the growing West Indian community, getting into distribution as well as pressing their own records. When they were finally able to afford a building to house their venture, The Chins chose the name VP Records, using the initials of Vincent and Pat’s first names. 

Instances of racism and sexism did little to deter the 4-foot-11-inch entrepreneur, driven by their humble beginnings and her high hopes. “Every day we tried to do something better,” she said. Didn’t plan it, didn’t go to business school but we just followed instinct and there were a lot of people who helped us along the way.” 

Established in 1979, VP Records is currently the world’s largest independent label, distributor, and publisher of reggae and dancehall music, controlling more than 30,000 song titles. It’s now run by the immigrants’ three sons with offices in New York, Miami, Tokyo, London and Jamaica, and annual grosses in excess of $10 million. The impressive list of VP artists and alumni includes Buju Banton, Beres Hammond, Shaggy, Sean Paul, Maxi Priest, Marcia Griffiths, Elephant Man, Wayne Wonder and Lady Saw.