World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

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Channel One

Studio. Reggae, dub

Active
1972-1985

Channel One, established in 1972 by the Hoo Kim brothers at 29 Maxfield Avenue, was the studio that led Jamaican music in the mid-1970s. Joseph "Jojo" Hoo Kim, with his brothers Ernest, Kenneth, and Paul, fitted it with an API console that Howard Campbell calls "cutting edge at the time," but at first, the Rough Guide says, the sound "was not right." I-Roy sent the brothers to King Tubby's to hear the high-pass filter they already owned in proper use; after that, Sly Dunbar recalled, the drums were "always up the front" and the studio "always have a big bass sound."

The house band was the Revolutionaries, built around Sly Dunbar on drums and Robbie Shakespeare on bass with Ansel Collins, Radcliffe "Dougie" Bryan, and others. What they developed there, called rockers, was faster and more aggressive than the one drop, with Dunbar doubling up the beat with a tap on the rim of the snare and borrowing partly from American disco. The Revolutionaries' horn-dominated singles, among them "MPLA," "IRA," "Angola," and "SNCC," used dub techniques on their A-sides to bring out Dunbar's drumming and Shakespeare's bass lines, and the studio was a pioneer in using dubbed-up backings on vocal records such as the Meditations' "Woman Is Like a Shadow."

The peak came in the middle of the decade. The Mighty Diamonds' "Right Time," the Wailing Souls' Channel One sides, Junior Byles, the Gladiators, and a very large number of singles came out of the room, along with the Revolutionaries' own instrumental albums. Producers rented the studio by the hour and hired the band, unlike Studio One, which Dodd would not hire out, and Bunny Lee, Niney the Observer, and Joe Gibbs all worked there.

With Bunny Lee, Joe Gibbs, and Clive Chin, Channel One revived old Studio One and Treasure Isle hits and versioned them, in Bradley's words, "a shameless number of times," with vocal, deejay, instrumental, and dub cuts all released separately.

The studio had lost its lead by the late 1970s, and its importance declined further in the 1980s as digital production spread and Sly and Robbie moved toward international work. Joseph Hoo Kim relocated to New York.

Last updated November 4, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 228, says the Hookims built the studio on Maxfield Avenue in 1972 and that it was operational by 1973; on p. 156 it dates the studio and label from 1973, and Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 354, has the brothers opening the studio in 1973. Campbell gives 1972 for the founding and 1973 for the official launch, names 29 Maxfield Avenue as the original location, and reports that the building was demolished on September 5, 2026. Howard Campbell, "Joseph Hoo Kim's Legacy Lives On," Jamaica Observer, September 21, 2018, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2018/09/21/joseph-hoo-kims-legacy-lives-on/; Howard Campbell, "Sailing Down Channel One," Jamaica Observer, February 18, 2020, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2020/02/18/sailing-down-channel-one/; Howard Campbell, "'Yuh Don't Destroy History': Wailing Souls' Bread Laments Demolition of Legendary Channel One Studio," Jamaica Observer, September 9, 2026, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2026/09/09/yuh-dont-destroy-history-wailing-souls-bread-laments-demolition-legendary-channel-one-studio/.
  2. Campbell credits the brothers' API console, "cutting edge at the time," with the studio's sound. Campbell, "Hoo Kim's Legacy." The Rough Guide says that at first "the sound of the studio was not right," until I-Roy sent the Hookims to King Tubby's to hear the high-pass filter they already owned in use. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 229. Sly Dunbar recalled that "the drums was always up the front of any Channel One production" and that the studio "always have a big bass sound"; Leroy Sibbles, by contrast, heard its sound as "almost pure Studio One." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 219-20, 479.
  3. The Rough Guide lists the Revolutionaries as Sly and Robbie with Ossie Hibbert, Ansel Collins, Errol "Tarzan" Nelson, Radcliffe "Dougie" Bryan, Robbie Lyn, Sticky Thompson, and a horn section, with Bertram "Ranchie" McLean sometimes on bass. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 156-57. Bradley says the Hookims took on Skin, Flesh and Bone, Sly and Ranchie's band, and that Sly was teamed with Robbie at Channel One; he dates the hiring of the Revolutionaries to 1976. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 335, 354-55.
  4. Bradley describes Sly first adding a "clapping snare-drum beat" and then "doubling up the drumming" with "what sound like rim shots," in music "still paying a noticeable debt to US disco." Sly dated the "double tap played on the rim" to the Mighty Diamonds' "Right Time." The Rough Guide credits I-Roy and Joe Joe Hookim with suggesting the "clap" sound on the snare. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 355, 479; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 229.
  5. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 229.
  6. The two books differ on the exact years. Bradley has Channel One at the top "from 1974 till 1976," and Junior Delgado gives the rockers sound "maybe two years"; the Rough Guide dates the "truly distinctive Channel One sound" from mid-1975 and ends its "undisputed reign" in 1977. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 354-55; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 156, 158.
  7. The Rough Guide dates the Mighty Diamonds' "Right Time" to 1975 and covers the Wailing Souls' Channel One work, Junior Byles's "Fade Away," and the Revolutionaries' instrumental cuts such as "MPLA," "Angola," and "Leftist"; it also notes rhythms by the Gladiators at Channel One in 1983. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 156-58, 190. See also Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 357-58.
  8. The books show Bunny Lee hiring Channel One, along with Randy's and Harry J, and smaller producers such as Bertram Brown and Alvin Ranglin recording there. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 152-53, 186, 197; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 350. Joe Gibbs ran his own studio from the late 1960s and opened a new one on Retirement Crescent in 1975, though his house band was essentially the Revolutionaries. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 160, 229. Leroy Sibbles said Dodd "wouldn't hire his studio out to other producers." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 219.
  9. Bradley traces the practice of reviving old Studio One and Treasure Isle hits and versioning them "a shameless number of times" to Bunny Lee and "his immediate contemporaries," Joe Gibbs, Clive Chin, and Joe Joe Hookim. The Rough Guide counts Lee "among the first" to reuse rhythm tracks this way and has Gibbs following "the Channel One model" of deejay versions. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 351; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 153, 158, 162.
  10. The Rough Guide says Channel One's "undisputed reign" ended in 1977, when the lead passed to Joe Gibbs and Errol Thompson; Bradley says the Hookims were "sidelined" by the competition in the second half of the decade. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 158; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 358. Campbell reports that hits continued after Paul Hoo Kim was murdered in 1977, and that the family stepped back from the music business in the late 1980s. Howard Campbell, "R.I.P. Jo Jo Hoo Kim," United Reggae, September 23, 2018, https://unitedreggae.com/news/n2050/092318/r-i-p-jo-jo-hoo-kim; Campbell, "Sailing Down Channel One."
  11. Joseph Hoo Kim died in New York on September 20, 2018, having overseen the reissue of the Channel One catalog for the previous twenty-five years. Campbell, "R.I.P. Jo Jo Hoo Kim"; Campbell, "Hoo Kim's Legacy."

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