DJ Chozie’s album, “Walking Backwards,” hits Beijing
Amidst the minions of Beijing DJs understated as a minimal tech party in a basement, a man with diamond-encrusted turntables hanging from his neck will surely catch your attention. DJ Chozie (aka Timothy Kin-Hing) certainly isn’t trying to keep a low profile in the underground. His ambitions are a hell of a lot higher.

“All I want is to step things up to the next level,” Chozie explains, “because China is the last frontier of dance music, and I want to conquer it.” With a residency and partnership at the Beijing dance institution of The World of Suzie Wong’s and a new album coming out this month, the driven DJ Chozie is poised to push Chinese dance music into the forefront of the global mainstream.

Before the clubbing juggernauts of the city spread out en masse over Gongti, nightclubs in Beijing were a more limited affair. Nightlife entrepreneur Henry Li, the man who built Sanlitun, quickly took note of Chozie’s rising star. “What attracted me to Chozie from the very start was the fact that he was so young and full of energy, but also had incredible skills as a DJ,” Li confides. “I just asked him to play 20 minutes for me, and he left an impression so strong that I felt he needed to get involved with my next venture.”

Even after a return to Australia and a stint in Taiwan, Chozie remained in contact with Li, who invited him back to Beijing in 1998 for a residency at his trail-blazing Club Vogue.

Chozie spent his next few years going back and forth between Beijng and Taipei, where in the latter he quickly garnered the reputation as Asia’s first “pop-star” DJ. In spite of his fame in Taiwan, Chozie’s main interest was to shape a scene in transition. “I just wanted to create groundbreaking events for a dance music scene in order to open doors for other great DJs and producers in mainland China,” Chozie explains.

When Anson Chiang decided that the now-famous World of Suzie Wong’s needed a face for the public in 2003, there was no question as to who would take the reigns as the new venture’s musical director. During his tenure at Suzie Wong’s, Chozie began to hone the sound that he would capture on his first full-length production, “Walking Backwards.”

Recorded at Dong Studios, China’s biggest analog recording locale, and featuring guest production from Ibiza deck-legend Johnny Gleeson and Beijing’s very own MC Young Kin, “Walking Backwards: showcases over a decade of moments in the explosive career of DJ Chozie.

We’re giving the enthusiastic Aussie an A for setting the bar as high as the stars.

–Rachel Simhon