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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Clive Chin

Producer. Reggae, dub

Active
1971-present
Sunrise
May 14, 1954, Kingston, Jamaica

Clive Chin, son of Vincent "Randy" Chin, produced at his family's Studio 17 above the Randy's record shop on North Parade during the early 1970s; the Rough Guide calls Randy's "the most important studio of the early 1970s."

He and Augustus Pablo had been schoolmates at Kingston College. Their "Java" (1972), a melodica instrumental over a riddim built at Studio 17, began as a vocal by a schoolmate, Dennis Wright, who could not sing it; they dropped the vocal rather than throw the riddim away. It was the first Pablo record, the Rough Guide says, to strike a chord with Jamaican buyers, and it carried his "Far East sound" to them. The album This Is Augustus Pablo (1974) followed.

Chin worked with the engineer Errol Thompson, and their experiments with stripping vocals and pushing effects paralleled what King Tubby was doing in Waterhouse. Chin has claimed that Java Java Dub (1973) was the first dub album; Herman Chin Loy's Aquarius Dub and Lee Perry's Blackboard Jungle Dub are the other two contenders the Rough Guide names.

He also produced Dennis Brown, Junior Byles, and Alton Ellis, among others. The sessions could be makeshift: for Ellis's "Too Late to Turn Back Now," Sticky Thompson played a cheese grater to get the muted sound the record needed. After some years running a restaurant in New York he returned to music and now oversees 17 North Parade, the reissue label that has been putting the Randy's archive back into circulation.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Chin told Angus Taylor that Randy's moved to 17 North Parade in 1961 and that the family built the studio upstairs from the shop; he dated its construction to 1968 and its opening to the spring of 1969. Angus Taylor, "Clive Chin: From 17 North Parade to the World," United Reggae, September 9, 2012, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n1094/090912/clive-chin-from-17-north-parade-to-the-world; "Clive Chin: Come in My Kitchen," lecture, Red Bull Music Academy, Cape Town, 2003, accessed October 1, 2026, https://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/clive-chin-come-in-my-kitchen/. The Rough Guide calls Randy's "the most important studio of the early 1970s" and notes that Bunny Lee bought time there from Chin. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 114, 152.
  2. Chin said he spent five years at Kingston College and knew Pablo there as a boy. Angus Taylor, "Interview: Clive Chin," United Reggae, November 5, 2008, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n233/110508/interview-clive-chin. The Rough Guide calls Chin Pablo's "friend since schooldays." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 114.
  3. The Rough Guide calls "Java" the first Pablo record "which really struck a chord with Jamaican record buyers," but traces the beginning of "what would soon come to be known as Pablo's 'Far East sound'" to his earlier "East of the River Nile" for Herman Chin Loy. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 113-14. Chin recalled "Java" as "a massive tune for its time" and said it began as a vocal by a schoolmate, Dennis Wright, who could not sing it. Taylor, "Interview: Clive Chin." Taylor, "From 17 North Parade to the World."
  4. The Rough Guide says Pablo played over "a dozen popular Randy's rhythms" and that "the choice of rhythms from Clive Chin was immaculate." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 170.
  5. Bradley says the Chins had been cutting true dubs, not "merely vocal-less versions," since 1972 in "the Errol Thompson-engineered Impact All-Stars sessions." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 330. The Rough Guide notes that Thompson had to push buttons rather than slide faders as Tubby did, yet introduced backward-running and slowed-down vocals on a 1973 version of Lloyd Parkes's "Ordinary Man." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 223. Chin said Thompson worked with him until 1974. "Come in My Kitchen."
  6. The Rough Guide names Blackboard Jungle Dub, Java Java Java Java ("often referred to as Java Java Dub"), and Aquarius Dub as the "three contenders" for the first dub album, all from 1973; Bradley calls the Chin album "another of the very first dub albums" and dates Aquarius Dub to "roughly the same time." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 221; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 322, 330. In a 2003 lecture Chin accepted the description of "Java" as "one of the first, if not the first dub album." "Come in My Kitchen." Katz credits Chin and the engineer Errol Thompson with presiding over This Is Augustus Pablo and calls Java Java Java Java "one of the first fully-fledged dub albums." David Katz, "Errol Thompson," Guardian, December 9, 2004, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/dec/09/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1.
  7. The Rough Guide lists vocals by Dennis Brown, Junior Byles, Hubert Lee, Jimmy London, Carl Malcolm, and the Lyrics. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 114. Chin produced Alton Ellis's 1972 cover of "Too Late to Turn Back Now." Taylor, "From 17 North Parade to the World."
  8. Taylor, "From 17 North Parade to the World."
  9. The Rough Guide says the Chin family relocated to the United States in the middle of the decade; Chin dated his father's move to "around '76, '77." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 223; Taylor, "Interview: Clive Chin." The Red Bull Music Academy describes him as a New York restaurant manager, and Wikipedia says he ran a Jamaican restaurant in Queens for some fifteen years and started the 17 North Parade imprint at VP in 2007. "Come in My Kitchen." "Clive Chin," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Chin. On the label's purpose, Taylor, "Interview: Clive Chin."

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