Throwback Thursdays: Black Chiney’s Most Classic Mixtapes

A little over a year ago, Supa Dups, founder of Black Chiney Sound (and producer for Eminem, Bruno Mars and Rihanna, among others), uploaded the full catalog of the Miami DJ crew’s influential mixtape series to his Soundcloud page. Released on CD back when you had to purchase mixtapes by hand instead of downloading them for free, Black Chiney mixes were highly sought-after by dancehall enthusiasts at the time of their release in the early and mid 2000s. Renowned for their seamless blends of reggae vocals and hip-hop beats, they have taken on legendary status.

You probably could have found most of these mixes online already if you knew where to look, but hearing them all in one place offered a reminder that Black Chiney—Dups, Walshy Fire, Bobby Chin and Willy Chin—were the most influential U.S.-based sound system of their time, responsible for many of the changes that have occurred in dancehall during the subsequent years. Listening to the playful, comedic and eclectic mixes today, it’s easy to hear how they were an influence on Diplo, who has cited them as an inspiration for Major Lazer (This fact is probably also confirmed by Walshy Fire’s current role in the group.)

Here, Willy Chin—who recently dropped the first official Black Chiney soca mix, Uh Gosh!—breaks down Black Chiney’s most classic mixtapes.

ENTER THE DRAGON (Vol. 1)

The first Black Chiney mixtape was made to pay an overdue phone bill. Supa Dups owed $500 for the bill. The phone was in his aunt’s name, and he didn’t want her credit to go bad.

The Last Dragon (Vol. 4)

The computer remix was freshly introduced at this time, and Supa Dups was experimenting making the remixes on a computer. Before that Dups would make the remixes live on turntables, then he started using a four-track recorder, then lead to using drum machines, and to current date computer.

CD Killer (Vol. 5)

This is the CD that went viral. And the first [Black Chiney] CD that had dubs on it. Which actually was the start of the actual sound system. Black chiney 5 would be the most classic out of all of them. just because that’s the one that created the global fire. And alot of the remixes from that tape is are sound boy anthems, where they still currently get crazy crowd reactions to the present day.

Mixology (Vol. 6)

This was the start of original production in the mixes and remixes. It was also a full-dubplate, full remix CD. remixing the beats as well as vocals.

Black-A-Chino (Vol. 7)

This was a full duplate mix, with the same Black Chiney formula: Hip-hop/ reggae remix mash ups.

Black Chiney – Supa Chiney (Vol. 8.1, 2004)

We rented a house, and every member lived in the house for a month or so. Everyone was inputting ideas and inputting to the creation: Willy Chin and Dups working on remixes in different rooms, Walshy giving ideas and riddim choices for remixes, and Bobby making his crank calls. It was: Eat, sleep and drink CD. I woke up with the Scooby Doo idea— Elephant Man Scooby Doo dancing was popular at the time. The Kopa riddim [Black Chiney’s first riddim release] was on this mix. This riddim pushed Dups into a more serious role with his production.