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Jin Information
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'Jin Au-Yeung', also known as 'Jin', 'Jin tha MC' and 'The Emcee' is a Chinese American rapper who speaks Cantonese and English.
Jin was born on June 4, 1982 in Miami, Florida. The son of Chinese immigrants, Jin watched his parents work extremely hard every day as they ran their own restaurant. In junior high, Jin became fascinated with hip-hop music and dreamed of becoming a professional rapper. He was inspired by artists such as Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, The Notorious B.I.G. and other New York rappers from the early 1990's, an era now referred to as The Golden Age. Realizing he had a talent for freestyle rap, he would perform for his classmates, co-workers and whoever would listen. Jin began entering freestyle battles in local hip-hop clubs where he was usually the only Asian person around. He was often underestimated due to his Chinese ethnicity. But Jin's talent won the crowds over and he was awarded the championship every time. He quickly developed a reputation as Miami's cleverest hip-hop lyricist. But in the hip-hop world, Miami is known more for bass music than clever lyrics. He knew this would be another obstacle to overcome in order to gain acceptance.
In 2001, his parents decided to move the family to Chinatown, New York City. He began performing freestyles and selling his own mixtapes on the streets, in hip-hop clubs and wherever he could. He quickly gained a huge following just as he had done in Miami. His big break came when the BET program "106 & Park" began inviting local rappers to have freestyle battles every Friday. Jin was ready for the national exposure. He auditioned and again was underestimated due to his race. But Jin proved everyone wrong by winning the battles week after week. After winning for seven weeks straight, Jin was inducted into the show's Hall of Fame. That same night, he announced that he had signed a deal with Ruff Ryders; the same record label as DMX and Jadakiss.
His first single under Ruff Ryders was titled "Learn Chinese." In October 2004, Jin released his debut album, The Rest Is History, which reached the top 100 of the Billboard Top 200 albums chart. The album only sold 100,000 units and both singles, "Learn Chinese" and "Senorita" didn't break through the mainstream.
On May 18th, 2005, Jin revealed that he was putting his rap career on hold to explore other options. To make this clear, he recorded a song called "I Quit." This announcement was thought to have marked the end of Jin's rap career. However, he later re-emerged under a different alias, The Emcee, and freestyled over such songs as Jay-Z's "Dear Summer." His latest release is "Top 5" where Jin yet again displays his lyrical talent in explaining the history of hip-hop's greatest artists. Now under an indie label, CraftyPlugz/Draft Records, Jin released his second album, "Jin Presents: The Emcee's Properganda" on October 25th. He hopes to be someone that other aspiring Asian-American rappers can look up to.
Trivia
Jin made a minor appearance in the movie 2 Fast 2 Furious as a mechanic named Jimmy. His song "Peel Off" was featured on the 2 Fast 2 Furious soundtrack.
Jin has a tattoo on his neck of his given name written in Chinese (靖).
On January 17, 2005, a New York-based radio station, Hot 97, caused controversy when they released a song, "USA for Indonesia", making a joke out of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, and was notably offensive especially to Asian Americans. It was then followed by an argument between shock jock Miss Jones and co-host Todd Lynn against Asian American co-host Miss Info, who was trying to distance herself from the joke. Jin immediately wrote a song in protest to Miss Jones, which garnered much attention.
The legendary DJ Kool Herc, who is credited as the founder of Hip Hop, appears in Jin's latest music video, "Top 5 (Dead or Alive)".
Quotes
From 106 & Park BET Freestyle Friday:
* If you make one joke about rice or karate/ NYPD be in chinatown searchin for your body
* Yo, if the rap game is wack, everybody's blamin you/ oh you from brooklyn? then biggie must be ashamed of you
* Ask your girl, i was doin somethin at her house/ matter fact, she had my eggroll and my dumplings in her mouth
* You ain't a Reggae arist and I aint hatin' on you/ Stop lyin, Mrs. Cleo is more Jamaican than you
* My pants are new, my sweater is new/ don't be mad at chinese kid dressed better than you
* Don't make me start rappin in chinese on the microphone/ "lei faan loh kay lah" that means take your sorry butt home!
* Yo, i get girls, who you tryin to dis man?/ he masturbate so much he hadda rock a wristband
* I got fans across the country, jin is who they feelin/ last time he had a fan it was spinnin on the ceilin
* I go online, and check my hotmail/ he go on the internet lookin for hot males
* My freestyle is about to tear you up, i'm really somethin that you not usedta/ he the first one to open a fortune cookie sayin you're a loser
* Claim you clap guns supersoakers make noise/ he the type to play strip poker with his boys
* You wanna say im' chinese sonny? here's a reminda/ check your tims they probably say "made in china"
* Dude, you, stop followin trends/ your girl must love alcohol cause she be swallowin' jin
* This is 106 and park, i'm a hard act to follow/ you a amateur, you go to the apollo
* You don't even like football thats a myth like unicorns/ he jus like seeing grown men in tight uniforms
Against Professer Green:
* Hey yo im like the sun you know i have to shine/ i have his ass shook and i aint even have to rhyme
* Hey yo this year ima get rich/ its the year of the dragon not the year of the bitch
* I™m like a ventriloquist, watch me push this dummy off the ledge/ And fuck predicting, I control everything he says
* You mean to tell me that the best london had to offer was Professor Green/Goddamn that must be such a dissappoint to The Queen
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