VP marks milestone with box set
VP Records will release a multi-song box set on October 25 as part of its 40th anniversary celebrations. Titled Down In Jamaica – 40 Years Of VP Records, it contains 94 songs that helped transform the Queens, New York company from ‘mom and pop’ entity to one of the music industry’s most competitive independent record labels.
The set comprises four seven-inch vinyl records, four 12-inch vinyl records and a four-CD cache. The songs are complemented by a 24-page booklet tracing the company’s launch by Vincent Chin and his wife Pat in 1979.
Down in Jamaica is compiled by Carter Van Pelt, VP’s director of Catalogue Development.
“I selected the tracks and recommended the unusual format (vinyl, CD), because I wanted to bring together some different parts of VP’s history; hit songs one the one hand and deep cuts on the other. The CDs are a chronology of hit songs or songs by major artistes whose work was released through VP,” Van Pelt told the Jamaica Observer. “My own personal taste was the last consideration, and I really tried to curate the set objectively, regardless of how I felt about any given track or artiste. This is about demonstrating how important VP has been to the overall narrative of Jamaican popular music.”
The hits on Down in Jamaica include Sean Paul and Sasha’s I’m Still in Love With You, Wayne Wonder’s No Letting Go, and Who Am I by Beenie Man. Those songs made Billboard Magazine’s pop chart in the early 2000s and 1990s, a fruitful period for VP.
There are also songs that were distributed by VP through licensing deals with artistes and producers. They include Gregory Isaacs’ Slave Master, Children of Israel by Dennis Brown, Gunman from Michael Prophet and Johnny Osbourne’s Ice Cream Love.
The vinyl pieces include Fisherman by The Congos and What Do You Know/Lots of Sign by Junior Reid and Tenor Saw, respectively.
According to Van Pelt, “Most of the songs on the CDs will be easily recognisable to those who have followed reggae and dancehall through the years. These are not tracks that the company licensed years later through catalogue deals, but tracks the company released or manufactured at the time the songs were brand new to the market. The point in drawing that line is to show the relevance of the company over its 40 years in New York, versus how it came to have its current 25,000-song catalogue.”
Vincent and Pat Chin migrated to the United States in the late 1970s and established VP Records shortly after. They got into the music business in the late 1950s, operated the successful Randy’s label and recording studio in downtown Kingston.
Popularly known as Randy, Vincent Chin died in 2003.
The Chins’ sons, Chris and Randy, are principal managers of VP Records. With Pat in a matriarchal role, they oversaw the label’s remarkable rise during the 1990s when just about every major dancehall act (Beenie Man, Garnet Silk, Lady Saw, Richie Stephens, Wayne Wonder and Tony Rebel) had their albums and songs distributed by VP.