SmartShanghai | Interview: Clive Chin

Interview: Clive Chin

By Alastair Sloan, Nov 11th, 2009 | In Nightlife

Inheriting the love for Jamaican music from his father -- Randy's Records' founder Vincent Chin -- Chinese-Jamaican producer Clive Chin counts among his producing credits classic recordings by The Wailers, Augustus Pablo, Lee Perry, and Black Uhuru, among others (check out some samples here). Hosted in Shanghai by Uprooted Sunshine, Clive's made the journey from Jamaica back to China, retracing his roots, speaking on his legendary producing career, and dropping the classics.

SmartShanghai talked to Clive about coming home.

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Uprooted Sunshine are doing two events with Clive: the first is tonight at Dada bar. Clive is going to be talking about Reggae music, his career, Randy's Records, and more. Don't miss this Q&A session with this Reggae luminary -- starts 9pm. On Saturday, Clive is joined by Uprooted for a party at The Shelter. Cover is 50rmb. Starts 10pm.

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What were your earliest memories of working at Randy's, from an early age?

Clive: I remember it well... we as a family. My earliest remembrance was with my brother, packing records, checking records. Down there at the age of about 15, I was fast-checking '45s. You know, you used to have to check records by hand, flicking through with your fingers, checking what came in from the distributors.

So you were doing the hard work?

Clive: No, no -- I used to enjoy it! But yes that was my earliest remembrance... and of course getting to see the artists for the first time. When they came in that was exciting...

What about your earliest memory of your times in the studio?

Clive: The studio I remember more vividly, I became a little older then... when I started working at the studio back then, everything was custom-made. We made our own acoustics, we stuck dividers up around the amplifiers, made of wood. We got the instruments like this, to make sure there was no spreading of the sound.

You've been involved with or been running a successful music business for fifty years... what would you put your success and longevity down to?

Clive: My passion for the music started when I got more involved in the production side of it... when you start getting personally involved in the recording of a song and giving it all your 100%. That's what I consider makes me get up in the morning and get out there and get it done, that enjoyment -- that fun, that drive, that spontaneous drive. You really have to have a great love for whatever you do... if you're going to do something you have to sit down and do it really well.

So would you say you're a perfectionist?

Clive: Yeah... my perfectionism that's involved in it is that I try to whatever I do, I do to the best of my ability. Like what my father did in his earliest recordings with his ska songs -- you know like "Sidewinder" by Lee Morgan. Yes, and that followed through to my days producing, starting off in the early seventies with Augustus Pablo.

Augustus Pablo was who recorded "Java" right?

Clive: That's right. And I never really felt at the time that it was going to be as massive at the time as it is today. That song has been. A lot of people who know the music know that song, and use it and it becomes their kind of theme song... well, "Java" has been covered by a lot of people, and sampled by a lot of producers... so I'm very honored and very happy to know that the music has flourished and has been so appreciated, it's like timeless music.

Can we talk a bit about your connection with China now... what was it like growing up as a Chinese family in Jamaica?

Clive: Well, you see growing up in a middle-class family you know, because we weren't really upper class back then -- it really had a lot of stringent rules. I came out of a family of four siblings: me, two brothers, and one sister -- and there was a lot of strictness. We couldn't go and mix up with people after school, we had to come home, do our homework, and then we were expected to contribute to the family business. We felt like we had a duty to perform, to contribute to the family's upcoming. And the Chinese community in Jamaica really maintained that order, we retained those kind of Chinese qualities, growing up as Jamaican-Chinese. [Laughs.]

But of course some of those Chinese became rebels you know, rebels without a cause... some strayed!

How many other Chinese families got involved in music on the island?

Clive: There were quite a few of us... that kind of transition started to happen during pre-independence Jamaica. There were a lot of American influences -- Jazz, Blues and RnB drifting over... and our early music was Mento, that was the beginning of our own sound in Jamaica, from the early '50s.

It was a mixture of African and Latino, with banjos and maracas. Ivan Chin was the first producer to make Mento music in Jamaica in the early '50s, and he was Chinese... before that it had to made overseas in England. They sent it away and they would bring it back. So after Mento, then it was Ska.

But in terms of Chinese, the entertainment business was something that needed proper addressing. Rather than having foreigners in charge of that, why not be in charge of it yourself? There were guys like Byron Lee, Phil Chen from The Vagabonds, you know, and The Mighty Vikings, and Leslie Kong [who produced Bob Marley's first two records]. And of course my father, Vincent, involved in Randy's.

So now coming back to China do you feel an affinity with it?

Clive:Yes... coming back here is like a whole different ball game, you know, it's like coming into the 21st century here in China...

My impression of China is all the cars, a lot of traffic. Never seen so many cars now apart from in New York! It's modern... that's it. You can find some of the history of China you know, in Beijing. I went to the Great Wall, you know. But coming back here is like an achievement for my sake, and for my family.

I'm fulfilling my father's wishes, I've made this journey for him. My dad always said that he was going to travel here before he went into retirement, with his friends -- but he didn't make it so now I'm making the journey for him.

So this Q&A session at Dada tonight, is that something you've been doing in Hong Kong and Beijing too?

Clive: Well, yes I did something similar in Beijing but I didn't really go into it, I just stood up and briefly said who I am and all the reasons why I'm here but I didn't really go into it. Not in the way that I'm going to do it tonight where I'm going to go into the history of the early recordings into the present. I'm not just here to spin music, and watch everyone enjoy themselves... [Laughs] but of course there's a package to give them but this is more about teaching them a little bit, an exchange of my involvement. They all want to know, the world wants to know, they want to experience what it was like back then during the 1960s and '70s, how it was done and what motivations made us want to do that.

So what do you enjoy most now -- is it teaching about the music, playing the music, finding the music, or remembering the music?

Clive: Everything! You know what I'd like to do is at least do a project with every young group in every country, like for instance here in Shanghai I want to work with one of Gaz's artists ChaCha [Uprooted Sunshine]. And also I notice that the majority of teaching about Reggae music is not done by Jamaicans, it's done by foreigners. There are certain guys who turn up to every Bob Marley birthday and give their lectures about Bob, like they're the only ones who know about Bob. [Laughs.] But of course my experience with Bob was more close and more connected, and I lived in that era... and so my story about Bob, and all the other artists and producers would be more pure. You know there were good times and there were some bad times, but of course you always remember the good times over the bad times.

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Don't miss the Q&A with the legend, Clive Chin tonight at Dada bar. Clive joins Uprooted Sunshine this Saturday at The Shelter.

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