She founded the record label that launched Caribbean stars including Sean Paul - and despite poverty and tragedy along the way, Patrician `Miss Pat´ Chin still works in the VP office after 60 yearsThere can´t be that many 82-year-old dancehall and reggae svengalis. But Patricia `Miss Pat` Chin, who founded the VP Records shop, distributor and label in New York 40 years ago with her late husband, Vincent `Randy` Chin, (VP stands for Vincent and Pat) is still going strong, 60 years into a remarkable career. With VP, Chin has nurtured the careers of superstars including Maxi Priest, Bounty Killer, Lady Saw, Beenie Man, Ini Kamoze and Sean Paul, all of whom feature on a new 97-track anniversary box set.When we talk by phone, Miss Pat exudes that fantastic mixture of proclamatory formality and earthy observation peculiar to Caribbean people of her generation, and a life lived around world-changing music comes into view. She was born in Greenwich Farm, Kingston - her mother was Chinese and her father Indian - and she remembers that music was omnipresent in their household. `We didn´t have much entertainment,` she says. `If someone had a television, it would be just a tiny black-and-white Rediffusion. We didn´t then have a culture called reggae, but we were blessed to have R&B imported from America.` Then at 18, `I chose the music business,` she says. `Or the music business chose me. The music business was my husband.` Continue reading...
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