Here is my bio, as written by me. It might not be as grandeur as if it were written by a professional writer, but you can bet that the information will definitely be way more accurate than wikipedia any other online source. Early life: My name is Jin Au-Yeung. I was born on June 4th, 1982 in Miami, Florida. I grew up in a middle class neighborhood where my family ran a modest take out restaurant. Most of my childhood and teenage years were spent between staying out of trouble at school and helping out at the family business. It would be safe to say, Hiphop was my escape. At the age of 13, I started developing an interest for rap music (which I discovered via the radio/MTV). At first, it was purely a hobby, as I would learn the words to my favorite songs and mimic the rappers in front of the bathroom mirror. Around that same time, I got my first taste of being a recording artist when I went to a local carnival. They had one of those stands where the lyrics and instrumentals were provided. As you performed the song in the mobile vocal booth, they would record it onto a cassette tape for you. I still remember, it was a A side - B side cassette. On the A- side was LL Cool J's Mama Said Knock You Out and on the B side was Kriss Kross' Jump Jump. The best 10 bucks I ever spent. As the proverbial saying goes, that's when "I fell in love with Hiphop". Career: In Miami, I did all of the same things other aspiring rappers did. I dealt with my fairshare of managers. Some promised a whole lot and did not do much. Others didn't promise much and did even less. Also, I ran through the standard gamut of endless talent contests, open mics and artists showcases. This is all in hopes of getting discovered. In 2001, a year after I graduated from highschool my entire family decided to relocate from Miami to New York City. In fact, it was exactly one month after September. The purpose: mainly to be closer to my grandparents who reside in New York's Chinatown. Upon arriving in the Big Apple, I continued my pursuit for that "big break" and I did more showcases, freestyle battle competitions, etc. Lesson of the day: If you stand by the door long enough, opportunity is bound to knock. This is where the story gets interesting. One day, I was standing on the corner of 6th Ave & 8th Street in lower Manhattan when I met Kamel. To make a long story short, Kamel became my manager (our agreement was a handshake) and together, we embarked on a journey that will probably stick with us for a lifetime. That same year, I ended up on BET's 106 and Park where I won the Freestyle Friday competition for 7 consecutive weeks. Upon my final victory, I announced that I just signed with Ruff Ryders. I was pretty much sitting on top of the world at the time. Mind you, this all occured in 2001. 2002 goes by. 2003 goes by. 2004, my debut album finally sees the light of day. "What took so long?", some of you may ask. Label woes, politics, etc etc. In a nutshell, stuff that's beyond the artists control. Anyhow, that's water under the bridge. I'm about progress and forward thinking. In 2005, I parted ways with Ruff Ryders. It was a mutual understanding that I had to make the move. I will always be grateful for the opportunity they gave me and make use of what I learned while being part of that system. Since then, I've released quite a few independent projects and continued to do shows all across the four corners of the map. Q: "What's to come in 2008 and beyond for Jin?" A: "Stay tuned." Here's some other random stuff you might find interesting: - I was the mechanic, "Jimmy" in 2 Fast 2 Furious. - You can download the ringtone for my song Open Letter To Obama at the official Obama website: Barackobama.com http://www.myspace.com/therealjin
In 2001, he decided to move his family to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flushing%2C_Queens, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City. He began performing freestyles and selling his own mix tapes on the streets, in hip-hop clubs and wherever else possible. He quickly gained a huge following, just as he had done in Miami. His big break came when the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BET program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/106_%26_Park began inviting local rappers to hold battles in a segment known as "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freestyle_Friday." Ready for the national exposure, he auditioned and again was underestimated due to his ethnic background. Although he lost to Diabolic, he kept his head and proved everyone wrong by winning the battles week after week. His first battle was against Hasan, who had six straight victories and was one victory away from being inducted into the hall of fame. Jin began the competition by delivering strong rhymes during his round. Hasan countered during his thirty second round with rhymes; however, with ten seconds left in the battle, Hasan lost his focus and was unable to deliver any more lyrics and stopped his performance. Jin was then declared the new champion. After winning for seven weeks straight, Jin was inducted into the show's Hall of Fame. The MCs he battled against during that period were:
- Week one: Hasan
- Week two: Sterling
- Week three: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skitzo
- Week four: Logan
- Week five: Lucky Luciano
- Week six: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyzoo
- Week seven: Sean-Nicolas
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jin_%28rapper%29&action=edit§ion=3http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jin_%28rapper%29&action=edit§ion=3http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruff_Ryders". His first single under Ruff Ryders was titled "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learn_Chinese_%28song%29". It took a sample from the 1992 song "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Serious_%28album%29", from hip-hop group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_EFX. The second and final single for the album was originally supposed to be "I Got a Love" featuring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West, but was later changed to "Senorita" because http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roc-A-Fella Records didn't want to over-expose Kanye West. The album was originally scheduled to be released in the summer of 2003, but was delayed for over a year by the label. In October 2004, Jin released his debut album,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rest_Is_History, which reached number 54 of the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_%28magazine%29 Top 200 albums chart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_%28rapper%29#cite_note-2 Both of his singles, "Learn Chinese" and "Senorita", failed to be major mainstream successes. Nonetheless, Jin's music video "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learn_Chinese_%28song%29" was the first video ever to be played on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_Chi.
In 2003, Jin made an appearance in the movie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_Fast_2_Furious as a mechanic named 'Jimmy'. His song "Peel Off" was featured on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_Fast_2_Furious_%28Soundtrack%29. Jin was also featured on the Taipei-based pop artist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee-Hom_Wang's 2005 album
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_of_Earth. He also collaborated with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhangra artist, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggy_D, in the song "Kohl Aaja (Come Closer)", when he was in London doing some promotion for
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rest_Is_History.
In November 2003, Jin was in involved in an argument with another aspiring rapper named Raymond Yu, who was a gang member linked with the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Shadows street gang. This led to the shooting of Jin's friend Christopher Louie who is also known as LS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_%28rapper%29#cite_note-3 Jin held the Fight Klub battle championship until he lost the title and a $10,000 purse to challenger Serius Jones. Although often thought to have been a racially-driven battle and despite mass speculation that Serius had used pre-written lines, Jin lost the title. Two weeks later, Jin defeated all contestants in the Fight Klub Championship held in the Bahamas for $50,000 (Serius Jones also entered the contest, but was defeated in the 1st Round by U.K rapper Professor Green). Jin challenged Serius that same night to a rematch after the tournament was over for $10,000, but Serius was disappointed with his loss and "lack of crowd" and therefore, did not participate in the battle.
On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_17, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005, a New York-based radio station, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_97, caused controversy when they released a song, "USA for Indonesia," making a joke out of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, which was offensive to many, especially Asian Americans. The incident was followed by an argument between http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_jock Miss Jones and co-host Todd Lynn, and Asian American co-host Miss Info, who was attempting to avoid the joke. Jin immediately wrote a song in protest, to Miss Jones, titled "F*** the Tsunami Song."
Due to the long delay on the album, sales and where the contract was going to lead him, he decided with his manager to leave. When he left the Virgin label, he also left the Ruff Ryder label. Ruff Ryders is still active to date and Jin is in good terms with them.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jin_%28rapper%29&action=edit§ion=4http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jin_%28rapper%29&action=edit§ion=4http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_18", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005, Jin revealed that he would be putting his rap career on hold in order to explore other options. To make this clear, he recorded a song titled "I Quit", which was produced by the Golden Child. The announcement was widely misunderstood 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." He released a single called "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_5_%28Dead_or_Alive%29" where Jin displays his lyrical talent in explaining the history of hip-hop's greatest artists. The legendary DJ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kool_Herc, who is credited as the founder of hip-hop, appears in Jin's music video. After signing with an independent label, CraftyPlugz/Draft Records, Jin released his second album,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emcee%27s_Properganda on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_25, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005.
The rapper was featured in the
NBA Ballers: Phenom video game, where players are given the chance to battle him in a freestyle contest.
Jin released two albums in 2006. The first one,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Grand_Jin is a mixtape/album that was released on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_29, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006. The single released off the album is "FYI", for which the rapper shot and released a music video. The second album released in 2006 is Jin's third LP,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Promise_%28album%29. Instead of releasing the album in stores, Jin released it on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006 through his MySpace, with the first batch being autographed by himself. It was then sold on CDBaby.com with limited copies being pressed and not autographed for people who were unable to purchase it before. The first single for this album is titled "36-24-36 ( Apple Bottom Jeans )", a song in which Jin gives praise to Asian girls. Jin shot a music video for the song in December, but it has yet to be released.
Jin was a guest judge on BET's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freestyle_Friday on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_15, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006. Jin has stated that he doesn't like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_O%27Donnell because of her http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_O%27Donnell#Mocking_Chinese_language. He has also recorded a song that insults Rosie titled "You're Fired." The song features voice clips of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump and uses the beat from famous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nas diss song "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ether_%28song%29".
During the end of 2006, Jin worked on another album called
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_%28Jin_album%29. The album was recorded almost in entirely in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Cantonese. Jin officially launched his
ABC Jin website on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_10, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007. Jin premiered his music video for the first single, "ABC" on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_Chi on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_26, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007. The album was produced entirely by the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far%2AEast_Movement and features guest appearances from Hong Kong actor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Wu and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Oak_Band.
On Jin's MySpace, Jin mentioned that he is working on another English album named "Birthdays, Funerals and Things In Between". Jin premiered a song called "Open Letter to Obama" on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_24, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007, which made him become 1st on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama's Top 8 list on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_%28rapper%29#cite_note-4 On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_16, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007, Jin made a tribute song to the victims of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre called "Rain, Rain Go Away".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_%28rapper%29#cite_note-5 Recently Jin has decided to make his http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006 Internet album,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Promise_%28album%29, available in retail stores. It will be out on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_23, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_%28rapper%29#cite_note-6 Jin released a new song through his MySpace page. The song is titled "Fill In The Blanks", and Jin encourages his fans to record their own verse into the song.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_%28rapper%29#cite_note-7
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jin_%28rapper%29&action=edit§ion=5http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jin_%28rapper%29&action=edit§ion=5http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_%28rapper%29#cite_note-8"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_%28rapper%29#cite_note-9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_%28rapper%29