Black Chiney Sound System
Friday, February 8th
Whyte Noise, Fort Lauderdale
Better Than: Listening to pussyclaat soundbwoys trying to compete.
Last Friday night, Bobby Chin and one half of South Florida's Black Chiney sound kept the dancehall a blaze until the wee hours of the morning in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Some folks have wondered over the past year if Black Chiney can live up to the hype surrounding them as a DJ crew ever since they started getting ink in big name publications like FADER and touring all over the world. Others have questioned if Black Chiney can still reign as one of Broward and Miami's top sounds when they spend so much time on the road. Lately, they've been clapping back at a lot of those critics with fresh dubs, lot's of local shows, and a DJing style that get's fresher and fresher with each party where they appear.
On this night, the sound consisted of Bobby Chin, Willy Chin, and DJ Dinero who's the newest member to the group. Dinero's been making a name for himself in Miami pretty fast and is also DJing for Sean Kingston. I just saw Dinero tearing up the streets of Ocho Rios, Jamaica last weekend (which was a trip) as Sean Kingston celebrated his 18th birthday. The dude is nice with his hands, he's good at working up the crowd, and so far, he seems like a good edition to the Black Chiney fam.
But last Friday, things started off a little slow. The club didn't really start jumping until after 2:30 am (when most reggae fans start showing up) and until then, things were kind of dead. Jr. Taxi was doing his best to keep things moving forward. He played a strong mix of Mavado, Munga and Busy Signal tunes to help build up the energy, and mixed it all with a few hoodbangers like 50's "I Get Money," Flo Rida's "Low" and Kanye's "Good Life," which technically isn't hood at all, but it feels that way at a reggae show.
Slowly, the crowd started coming to life and Jr. Taxi was doing what he could given a venue that was still at just over half capacity. Whyte Noise, formerly Chyna Whyte, is kind of a strange club with a weird history of successes and failures. It's hard to find first off--tucked in an upstairs corner of the sprawling Riverfront complex--it's easy for folks to miss it and give up searching for the bar and head some place else. So that's working against it. But it seems to capture the urban/caribbean crowd that's out and about on Friday nights and the DJ's
are good. So that's a plus.
Either way, by the time Black Chiney took over around 3 ish, everything was heading in the right direction. They dropped a few dubplates to get things going and then jumped into heavier material as the night went on. There were a bunch of dancers on the scene cycling through as many dance routines as they had memorized and everything felt like a real dancehall (which isn't saying much for Lauderdale) minus the weird environs.
For the most part, Bobby Chin sat by pensively like a coach--chomping on a toothpick and making sure his selectors were on point. He finally jumped on the decks and started doing his thing closer to closing time (which was expected) but his style is well worth it. Everybody was dancing and shouting out the words to tunes. The Chin tandem+ DJ Dinero worked out well and it was a good look for the future of the sound. -- Jonathan Cunningham
Critics Notebook:
Personal Bias: Dancehall music sounds best the closer you get to sunrise.
Random Detail: Supa Dups or Walshy Killa weren't on hand, and it would have been better to see the crew at full strength.
By the Way: Next week, Mavado will be at Whyte Noise performing and it should sell off!!
