MC Jin

QUICK FACTS

• born in Miami
• became famous for rap battling on Black Entertainment Television's Freestyle Fridays
• has made mixtapes and 4 albums, including his debut The Rest is History (2004) and ABC (3007)
• acted in the movie 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
• has done songs with Kanye West, Wyclef Jean, and Leehom Wang
• featured in the documentary 1040 (2010) along with Van Ness Wu
• will play Bruce Lee's BFF in Bruce Lee, My Brother (2010)
• currently living in Hong Kong

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Jin grew up in a neighborhood of Miami with a large African-American population and early on began to have an interest in hip-hop and rap. His parents were alarmed and ashamed that their son was like a black kid.

After he graduated from high school in 2001, the family moved to New York where he started participating in BET's Freestyle Friday. People would tune in every week to see that one Chinese guy compete. He won seven battles in a row and got signed onto the Ruff Ryder's label, releasing his first album in 2004 and being the first Asian rapper on a major record label.


Pwning Sterling's racist rhymes on Freestyle Friday OHHH

The Rest is History was pretty successful; it was #54 on Billboard Top 200, and one of its two singles, "Learn Chinese," featured Wyclef:

"Rub it on her body like bodyshop lotion"

Other tracks are the moving "Same Cry," a song for Chinese people and people around the world, and "Love Story" about his first girlfriend who was black. (The song featuring Kanye did not get made into a single because his record company didn't want it to be. Check out Jin's version of "Touch the Sky" off of his 2010 Say Something mixtape.)

In 2003 he had a song in the soundtrack and small role as a mechanic for the movie 2 Fast 2 Furious:

And since then has made a few albums that have found popularity mainly within the Asian-American population. The latest, ABC, produced by EastWest Movement, was his first effort to write a Cantonese rap album. This was a big deal as Jin was not fluent in Cantonese, and like many heritage learners, had just picked up the language growing up within a Chinese family.

Notable tracks include "HK Superstar" featuring Daniel Wu, who also directed three of the videos for ABC, including the title track's which can be viewed with English subtitles here. Jin raps about his family, growing up, hip-hop, and of course, Chinese food!

Canadian professor of linguistics Jennifer Jay in her article analyzing Jin wrote the following:

"Despite a limited vocabulary, ABC serves up vivid images of daily life in the typical Chinese American family of eating, dating, living in America and Hong Kong. Jin brings into focus overlapping worlds in ABC, restaurant culture in America, the distant cultural and glamorous world of Hong Kong, and his love of the hip-hop world...Certainly Jin’s parents were totally surprised at the level of Chinese language that allowed him to bring out the album."

Indeed, his parents now couldn't be prouder; they even follow the hip-hop scene just for him. In 2008, Jin left his parents' home in NY to relocate to Hong Kong and release ABC there. Universial Music HK picked him up as a new artist. Jin says: "The response has been very positive, which makes me very happy, but I'm also exploring the idea of further pursuing a career, that's the goal."

Just three years before, Jin thought that he would always be known as "Jin the Chinese rapper" and not just "Jin the rapper." Now, he has a chance to have just that!

Ready to launch his career in China? Jin is optimistic and ambitious and hopes that he can have more success in Hong Kong where the rap scene is fairly small. He does have some previous experience in the motherland: After the release of his first album he had indeed done some touring in China and in 2006 was featured on Leehom's (Mandarin) hit album, Heroes of Earth, in the title song, which they performed together at Taiwan's Golden Melody Awards that year.



In 2007 Jin wrote an "Open Letter to Obama" showing his support and a song for the victims of the Virgina Tech shooting.

A Christian just like his friend Van Ness and baptised in 2008, some of Jin's newer songs in English such as "Angels" have Christian themes. He was interviewed in Jaeson Ma's 1040 movie:



Jin presently has a second Cantonese album in the works, + a collaboration with the Singaporean musician Hanjin Tan. He is pumped to be in the filming of Bruce Lee, My Brother, a movie about his hero Bruce Lee's childhood and teenage years. He will play Bruce's best friend "Unicorn," and the movie will come out in Novembe 2010 in time for Bruce Lee's 70th birthday.

Jin still releases English-language raps (you can download his latest mixtape on his site) and comes back to the U.S. regularly. Asked whether he is Chinese or American, Jin replies:

"Am I Chinese or American? What the heck. At any given moment, wherever I am, I'm both...Both those things you ask are a part of my identity, so that's just an impossible thing to answer!"

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