Jeremy Harding
Producer. Dancehall
- Active
- 1993-present
- Sunrise
- Kingston, Jamaica
- Also known as
- 2 Hard Recordings, 2Hard Records
Jeremy Harding is one of the progressive producers of the late 1990s whose studios were away from the West Kingston ghettos, and the man who built the "Playground" riddim and launched Sean Paul.
After a year in Toronto trying to make it as a hip-hop producer, he came home in 1993 and set up a studio in a one-bedroom apartment at 8 Jack's Hill Road, making radio jingles; through his brother Zachary, who was involved with the uptown Syndicate Disco sound, it became a busy dubplate workshop. That year the brothers started their 2 Hard Recordings label. Harding could build a riddim alone with a computer, a sampler and a few records, and he blended hip-hop into dancehall: "Playground" (1997) set an 808 kick drum and a sample from the Roots under a rolling bass line. Of "Who Am I" he says, "I played every note, I recorded and mixed it as I do with all the records I've made"; he credits his years as a deejay with teaching him how audiences receive music, and calls himself "the first record Producer in Jamaica to record to a computer hard drive."
"Playground" became one of the much-versioned minimalist riddims of the period. It carried Sean Paul's "Infiltrate," the record that first brought him notice, and Beenie Man's "Who Am I," a British pop hit. Harding became Paul's producer and manager, producing "Strategy" for 2 Hard as well, and he went on to record Wayne Marshall and to contribute to Glamma Kid's debut album; his "Liquid" riddim was another hardcore favorite.
Last updated November 5, 2026
Connections
- Beenie Man (artist)
- Sean Paul (artist)
Notes
- Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 345.
- Nicholas Nam, "Riddims That Slapped: Jeremy Harding's 'Playground' Marks 25th Anniversary," DancehallMag, October 25, 2022, https://dancehallmag.com/?p=60556.
- Nam, "Riddims That Slapped." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 292.
- Philip Dinham, "Ten Questions with Reggae/Dancehall Producer Jeremy Harding," DancehallMag, April 22, 2021, https://dancehallmag.com/?p=34320.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 292, 337, 345-47.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 293, 345-47, 350, 405; Nam, "Riddims That Slapped." Discogs says he managed Sean Paul until 2011. "Jeremy Harding," Discogs, accessed October 7, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/artist/192901-Jeremy-Harding.
