How ChinaMan Yard is Building on the Chinese-Jamaican Reggae Legacy

When most people hear the word “reggae,” chances are one of the furthest things from their mind is China, and yet, the two are inextricably entwined. To understand why we have to go all the way back to the mid-19th century when the UK violently uprooted Chinese laborers to work on plantations in Jamaica. Despite those traumatic origins, as the years wore on, more and more residents of the Middle Kingdom began settling on the Caribbean island, some seeking out business opportunities, others the first- and second-generation immigrants from that initial period, and by 1963, Chinese-Jamaicans had become a fixture of the community, operating large swaths of the country’s grocery stores and retail spaces. (There’s nothing like cramming a hundred years’ worth of history into a few sentences! To read more about the story of Chinese-Jamaicans, which you definitely should, click here.)

One of those Chinese-Jamaicans was Patricia Chin, who would go on to start VP Records – one of the world’s biggest reggae labels to date – with her husband Vincent “Randy” Chin. Speaking to Ink Stone News in 2019, Chin explained, “There were seven or eight musicians doing reggae music, while we Chinese were the ones who owned the Chinese shops. [These shops] were the meeting places for young generation Chinese to mix with the Blacks. The Chinese bought equipment like speakers and turntables, and the Blacks had the idea of producing, singing, and making music. The shops were like a [public] square for people to meet up.”

The Chins owned a record store, Randy’s Records, as well as a small recording studio, Studio 17. Little did they know that the young kids hanging around the shop and studio would go on to become legendary artists such as Bob Marley, Lee “Scratch” Perry, and Peter Tosh. Nevertheless, it was precisely because the Chin’s kept their studio time relatively cheap that these budding artists were able to develop their now-iconic sounds. “We invested in them, helped them press and sell records. It was the natural thing to do,” said Chin.

Now, some 50 years later, a crew of international and local producers and artists are bringing this legacy back to the mainland in the form of ChinaMan Yard, an outgrowth of DB Bros Records, the first dedicated reggae and dancehall music label to be established here.

Co-owner Hugo Poncet of France – who goes by the stage name General Huge – arrived in Beijing more than 11 years ago. At the time, he knew little of the city or its nightlife, however, he did find a couple of Chinese reggae albums by artists such as Xie Tian Xiao 谢天笑 and Long Shen Dao 龙神道, as well as a couple of reggae nights like Meiwentei Sound System and the odd event at Jam Session. Despite a lack of infrastructure supporting the genre, kids were hungry for it, and within a few short years, Poncet had already assembled a group, UBC – aka Ultimate Band Crew – which, at its peak, featured members from Beijing, Cameroon, France, Ethiopia, the Bahamas, and Antigua. They put out records and toured relentlessly for the next six years, finding kindred spirits all across the country, from Yunnan’s Kawa to Jiang Liang Sound out of Guilin.

Back in Beijing, however, the group noticed that the underground scenes were relatively “divided” between foreigners and locals, and thus they set about uniting the two. “We tried to listen to what style of reggae locals liked, and what style of reggae foreign locals liked, and we would play both,” recalls Poncet. ”We also started getting closer to the Beijing hip-hop scene, infusing reggae in local hip-hop parties, inviting both Chinese and foreign locals to join us on stage or organizing together to attract crowds from all backgrounds."

As their parties continued to grow, so too did an interest in the music that Chinese folks had championed five-decades prior, and in 2017 Poncet and a few friends began DB Bros Records, the first-ever dedicated reggae and dancehall label on the mainland. Over the next four years, they put out a slew of records and organized concerts, tours, and showcases for both international and local artists, including Beijing’s annual Bob Marley Day event. Needless to say, their vision of promoting local acts abroad and vice versa was quickly beginning to coalesce as they brought heavy hitters such as Anthony B, Perfect Giddimani, Tippa Irie, and Skarra Mucci to the capital, while also developing local acts like 刘锐 Stinging “Singing” Ray (of the infamous hip-hop crew Dungeon Beijing) and Norrisman, aka Zulu Bob. And in a nod to those early Chinese-Jamaican roots, the crew met with legendary reggae artist I Kong, nephew of Leslie Kong, the celebrated producer and founder of Beverley’s Records, who was largely responsible for kickstarting the careers of Marley and Jimmy Cliff.

What’s more, over the years, DB Bros cultivated a deep relationship with Jamaica, culminating in a letter from the country’s ambassador thanking Poncet and the crew for their work in spreading the music. “[Jamaica] is the most important place to get recognition from, because we are sharing their culture and music,” says Poncet, “[and] we want to do it in the most authentic way we can.”

Unfortunately, when COVID-19 hit China, and subsequently spread to the rest of the world, many of DB Bros’ members were forced to relocate and it became increasingly difficult to run the label. As such, the crew made the tough but necessary decision to dissolve DB and start anew as ChinaMan Yard. “Even though technically, some of us come from the previous label, we have new people in and so we all jointly took the decision to carry on with another name, a new birth,” says Poncet. “Truth is, ChinaMan Yard is a different label, but the same passion, the same goal, and mostly the same people.”

Given that Beijing is still, for the most part, operating at the mercy of COVID-19, there aren’t as many events as Poncet would like to see, or that DB Bros-turned-ChinaMan Yard used to host. That hasn’t stopped the crew from producing one album after another though. To date, they have more than 50 releases under their belt, the most recent of which is due out in a couple of months, with a few singles having dropped over the last couple of weeks. And if you’d like to catch ChinaMan Yard in action, they’ll be throwing a party at Dada alongside Oshi and Shanghai’s Jado on Apr 17. For now, you can follow ChinaMan Yard on Weibo, and check out a small sampling of their releases such as General Huge (Spotify, Apple Music, NetEase, QQ Music) and I Kong (Spotify, Apple Music, NetEase, QQ Music). 

READ: Andrew Bull In a China Shop: Charting the 50 Year Legacy of
China's Most Prolific DJ and Impresario

Images: Hugo Poncet, The Vinyl Factory