MC Jin

Early life

Jin Au-Yeung was born on June 4, 1982, in Miami, Florida, to Hong Kong immigrants of Hakka descent. He was raised in the general Miami area, where his parents owned a Chinese restaurant, and Jin attended John F. Kennedy Middle School in North Miami Beach. Jin went on to attend North Miami Beach Senior High School, from which he graduated in the year 2000. After graduating Jin decided to forgo college and began his rap career; moving to Queens, New York City with his parents in 2001. While there, Jin participated in many rap battles with his peers.

2001: Freestyle Friday

Au-Yeung began performing freestyles and selling his own mixtapes on the streets, in hip hop clubs and wherever else possible. While battling on the streets, he was spotted by Kamel Pratt, who then became his manager; together, they formed Crafty Plugz Entertainment. Au-Yeung's big break came when the BET program 106 & Park began inviting local rappers to hold battles in a segment known as Freestyle Friday. He won seven battles in a row, enabling him to be inducted in the Freestyle Friday Hall of Fame. Unlike other competitors, Jin occasionally spoke Cantonese in his freestyle verses.

2002–2005: Ruff Ryders era

That same night of his Hall of Fame induction, he announced that he had signed a deal with the Ruff Ryders label. His first single under Ruff Ryders was titled "Learn Chinese". It contained a sample from song "Blind Man Can See It", by James Brown (also sampled by Das EFX and Lord Finesse). The second and final single for the album was originally supposed to be "I Got a Love" featuring Kanye West, but was later changed to "Senorita" because Roc-A-Fella Records did not 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, The Rest Is History, which reached number 54 of the Billboard Top 200 albums chart. The two singles, "Learn Chinese" and "Senorita", were not major mainstream successes. Nonetheless, Jin's music video for "Learn Chinese" was the first video ever to be played on MTV Chi.

2005–2008: After Ruff Ryders

On April 23, 2005, Jin and rapper Serius Jones engaged in a rap battle. The battle was featured on Fight Klub DVD.

On May 18, 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", 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 "Top 5 (Dead or Alive)" in which he explored the history of hip-hop's greatest artists, using lyrics. The legendary DJ Kool Herc, who is credited as the founder of hip-hop, appears in Jin's music video. With independent label CraftyPlugz/Draft Records, Jin released his second album, The Emcee's Properganda, on October 25, 2005.

Jin was also featured on Taiwanese pop artist Leehom Wang's 2005 album Heroes of Earth. Together, Jin and Leehom performed their “Heroes of the Earth” collaboration live in Shanghai on February 16, 2006 at an event arranged by China-resident American A&R exec Andrew Ballen. Ballen was also the first promoter to bring Jin to mainland China in 2003 for his "The Rest is History" tour.

Jin released two albums in 2006. The first, 100 Grand Jin, is a mixtape/album that was released on August 29, 2006. The single released from the album is "FYI", for which the rapper shot and released a music video. The second album is Jin's third LP, I Promise.

On Jin's MySpace, Jin mentioned that he was working on another English album named "Birthdays, Funerals and Things in Between". Jin premiered a song called "Open Letter to Obama" on April 24, 2007, which made him become 1st on then-Presidential nominee Barack Obama's Top 8 list on MySpace.

On April 16, 2007, Jin made a tribute song to the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre called "Rain, Rain Go Away". Later that year, Jin decided to make his November 2006 online album, I Promise available in retail stores; it was given an October 23, 2007 release.

2008–2013: Hong Kong

Jin did a collaboration with Malaysian rapper Point Blanc in a track titled "One Day" (2008).

Mid-2008 saw Jin relocate to Hong Kong, initially for three months, to promote his first all-Cantonese language album ABC. The album was written and recorded in the US in 2006, but it wasn't until mid-2008 that Universal Records HK contacted Jin, interested in releasing the album there in the midst of an upsurge in interest in hip hop. In an interview Jin commented "I think with various artists, Cantonese hip-hop was starting to become more and more widespread"." ABC debuted at #1 and achieved gold status in Hong Kong.

He also put the song "Welcome to the Light Club" on his Myspace page. Jin is a Christian, stating in his song "Welcome to the Light Club" he was baptized in 2008. He has featured in Far East Movement's "Millionaire". He has done a track over a DJ Premier-produced joint titled "World Premier". He also collaborated with producer Trendsetter (aka Mark Holiday).

He has recently thrown out a Hip-Hop Census in honor of the 2010 Census and Chinese New Year, 2010. As said by Jin, this mixtape is open to anybody and will be mixed from the general population along with Jin. He released a mixtape entitled "Say Something", on May 15, 2010.

Jin released an album with his friend Hanjin Tan in 2010. On July 10, 2010, Jin collaborated with Singaporean Mandarin-language singer Hanjin Tan (陳奐仁) to release another Cantonese album 買一送一 (Buy one get one free). Jin also released a music video for his English single "Angels".

In December, 2010, Jin joined forces with Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang to release a Christmas music video entitled "Rap Now, 2010", which he performed for free. The video, with lyrics penned by Jin, featured a number of lines ending with "Act Now!" (起錨), echoing a Hong Kong government slogan. It garnered in excess of nine million views on the CE office's YouTube channel. A CNN report described the video as an "official eyesore" and "a political message thinly veiled as a Christmas card", and further criticised Jin's rapping as resembling "awkward nursery rhymes", in contrast to his earlier performances. However, local newspaper The Standard, in response to critics, stated in an editorial that "Tsang, like the millions who post videos of themselves or their loved ones, only wants to have fun."

On March 7, 2011, Jin released a music video for a song from his upcoming English album entitled "Charlie Sheen," collaborating with artists Dumbfoundead and Traphik/Timothy DeLaGhetto. Jin released an EP titled Sincerely Yours, a Christian-oriented and self-improvement-oriented EP featuring positive messages about life and self-reflective insights into his own life. Jin released his new single called "Shoot for the Moon" on June 4, 2011. On May 16, 2011, Jin released the track "AIYA" featuring label-mate, Toestah. He released a video on his YouTube channel consisting of hundreds of pictures of fans holding the aiya logo. On August 8, 2011, Jin released an all-Cantonese album, 回香靖 (Homecoming) in Hong Kong. And has since released several singles and music videos on YouTube.

Jin used to reside in Hong Kong. He starred frequently in commercials there, and made numerous appearances on TVB like Big Boys Club. He is also seen as an important part of recent Asian hip hop trends. Jin has since returned to the United States to reside permanently in New York again. In February 2012, Jin released a re-vamped version of his EP, Sincerely Yours 2.0, featuring some of the same lyrics, but many others changed, slightly altering the overall feel of the record. In August 2012, Jin released his English album, "Crazy Love Ridiculous Faith," for free download, an album in which he positively addresses both Christians and non-Christians. This album is intended to show a maturity in himself, as well. In December 2012, Jin released an upbeat EP called "Brand New Me EP," which includes many new singles.

2013–2015: Returning to the USA

In late 2013, Jin collaborated with independent label The Great Company. The first track to be released on the label was called "Hypocrite (The Gold Chapter)." On December 21, 2013, Jin released the first EP under the label called "Hypocrite". On October 21, 2014, the label released Jin's first album under their label: XIV:LIX. The album features Teesa, Hollis, Stacie Bollman, Tim Be Told, Bére and Storm. In 2015, he started Stand Up Comedies in New York City.

2015–present: China

In 2017, he is competing in The Rap of China, a rap reality show based in mainland China, under the alias "HipHopMan". He was wearing a golden mask and did not take it off until the end of instructor choosing process.

Personal life

On February 12, 2011, MC Jin and his fiancée, Carol, got married in Puerto Rico after a seven year courtship. The couple had a son in summer 2012 whom they named Chance. MC Jin has been a born again Christian since 2008, and has expressed his faith in his music since becoming a Christian. He speaks Hakka, Cantonese and English fluently, although he is not literate in Chinese.

Other activities

In 2006, the PlayStation 2/Xbox video game "NBA Ballers: Phenom" featured MC Jin as one of the rapper characters along with Ludacris and Hot Sauce.

Responding to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Jin participated with Jackie Chan and numerous other celebrities in a special three-hour charity concert, titled Artistes 311 Love Beyond Borders, on 1 April 2011 to help raise funds for Japan's disaster recovery effort. The 3-hour concert raised over HK$26 million (USD$3.3 million).

Aiya!

Aiya! (哎吔) is Jin's catchphrase and has often been used by him. It is a Cantonese interjection roughly equivalent to "Oh my gosh!" Fans pictured with the logo were able to appear in the music video for his song "Aiya!" (featuring Toestah). Jin also refers to his fans as his "AIYAfambam" or as the "AIYAmaniacs".