“Music is my life and I nonetheless must hold the momentum going from the previous sixty years. I really like to speak and unite folks. Doing nothing shouldn’t be my objective,” says 86-year-old entrepreneur and co-founder of VP Data Patricia ‘Miss Pat’ Chin, as she and her workforce put together for Worldwide File Retailer Day 2024 on April 20 throughout america, Europe, and elements of Asia.
Worldwide File Retailer Day originated in america in 2007 and is well known in nations together with the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan.
The day brings collectively followers, artists, and hundreds of file shops globally to rejoice the tradition of independently owned file shops and the vinyl file tradition that has introduced these shops into a brand new period of relevance.
A spotlight of the day is the issuing of particular vinyl releases together with different promotional choices to mark the event, that are solely accessible at collaborating shops.
VP Data’ Worldwide File Retailer Day
Miss Pat is eagerly anticipating VP Data’ annual File Retailer Day celebration, which can happen this Saturday from 12 midday to six pm at their flagship retailer in Jamaica Queens and at their retail retailer in Miramar Florida. Particular visitors for the day on the Jamaica Queens occasion will likely be VP recording artist Romain Virgo.
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In keeping with Miss Pat, “It is going to be a celebration of Romain’s new album launch, The Light Man, and in addition the work that he has executed through the years. We need to honor his accomplishments from his Rising Stars days up until now. He will likely be current to do a meet and greet, take photographs together with his followers, and signal copies of the album. It guarantees to be a enjoyable day and can shine a lightweight on the sound system and vinyl tradition, exhibiting everybody that our music is alive and properly, even with all of the phases that we’ve got handed by.”
Retirement not on Miss Pat’s agenda
At an age when a lot of her friends are having fun with retirement and slowing down, the tireless Miss Pat smilingly asserts that none of that’s on her agenda.
“I’m not retired,” she laughs. “I don’t consider myself as retired in any respect. I nonetheless have work to do and I nonetheless have my ears to the streets. I’ve been by all of it, from mento, ska, to rocksteady, reggae, dancehall, and dub, and I’ve by no means misplaced monitor of the totally different tendencies within the music. My plan is to maintain going and to maintain preserving our musical legacy for so long as I can.”
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Miss Pat and her late husband Vincent Chin collectively based VP Data in New York in 1979. That they had immigrated to the USA from Jamaica having run a small file retailer, Randy’s File Mart, and a recording studio, Studio 17, for some 20 years in downtown Kingston. From a tiny retail outlet on Jamaica Avenue in Queens, VP Data has grown to develop into the biggest impartial reggae label and distributor of Caribbean music on the earth.
She believes that entrepreneurship was in her DNA, as she began her personal enterprise throughout childhood whereas rising up in Kingston because the eldest of three youngsters born to her Chinese language mom and Indian father. Whereas at Alpha Women Faculty, she requested her father to purchase her some rubber bands and marbles, widespread novelty gadgets amongst her schoolmates on the time, and, exhibiting her enterprising entrepreneurial spirit, she bought them at lunchtime.
“Wanting again,” says Miss Pat right this moment, “Perhaps that’s how my enterprise sense started to develop.”
Her perseverance was instrumental to the eventual success of VP Data, which proudly boasts a roster of current and previous artists that features lots of the hottest reggae and dancehall stars of all time together with Beres Hammond, Shaggy, Beenie Man, Sean Paul, Spice, Girl Noticed, Morgan Heritage, and Tanya Stephens. A lot of them have develop into her shut associates.
Having survived and thrived amidst early skilled challenges, in addition to overcoming a number of private tragedies together with the lack of her husband Vincent, two sons, and a grandson, Miss Pat continues to persevere, decided to make a distinction.
In 2006, the federal government of Jamaica awarded her the celebrated Order of Distinction (OD) in recognition of her contribution to Jamaican music and tradition, and 2021 she revealed her memoir, Miss Pat- My Reggae Music Journey. She can be the primary lady to have acquired the American Affiliation of Unbiased Music Lifetime Achievement Award.
VP Data is positioned at 170 -19 Jamaica Avenue, Queens NY, 11432, and at 6022 SW twenty first Avenue in Miramar Florida, 33023. File Retailer Day is free and open to the general public.
