Jin
Jin is an emcee you rarely hear about, as if his time has come and gone, but what people fail to realize is that when you make a great contribution to the arts, it resonates in the minds of those who were exposed to it, years and years after exposure. That’s the kind of artist Jin is. He doesn’t always have to be in your face for you to respect him. You mention his name, your brain processes it, and respect becomes the afterthought. In the battle rap arena you can’t put vivid witty lines together and negatively aim them at your opponent and be forgotten. It just doesn’t work that way. Talent has no skin color or nationality. Thanks for reminding us of that, Jin.
What’s up?
I went to London a few weeks ago. I had a show out there. It was dope. It was in an amphitheater. They had some local London Hip Hop acts performing there too. It was a good turnout and a live
crowd.
Do you feel like people overseas have a different attitude towards hip hop than the people here?
It depends on where you go. The more you go into places where they have less access to it meaning they get what they get from the internet or just little spots that carry mixtapes or albums;
I think they have more of an appreciation for the culture as far as not so much the sensationalism that people see on TV or the radio here, but the art of emceeing and b-boying definitely more than
in the states.
What’s your assessment of Hip Hop right now?
I think there’s never a time when hip hop is not doing good. I think what happens is people get the two things confused like hip hop culture and the music industry. Realistically it’s a very fine line
between the two. Hip Hop culture is just that, the culture. It can never be unhealthy or at a low state like how some people might say it is. I think what happens is people look at record sales or
tv and they base that as the condition of hip hop–which I don’t think necessarily is true. Media as far as the companies are concerned, could really care less about the culture, in my opinion. At the end of the day they are what they’re called, “businesses.” That’s my stand on it. As far as what’s out there, what’s being projected to the masses could definitely be more balanced. I think that’s the only thing missing.
What artists captured your attention when you were growing up?
Initially I was definitely into LL Cool J, Naughty by Nature and even House of Pain. At that time, I was thirteen or fourteen and Kriss Kross was doing it big. At that point it was like “Look at these
kids rhyming.” They had the whole backwards gear. As a child it definitely was fascinating. The more important years for me were 15 and 16 because that’s when I was really able to grasp the
art–emceeing and what these artists and individuals were saying on the mic. Early Wu-Tang stuff, not any one particular member but them as a whole. Cats like Red, Meth, Biggie, Jay and Nas,
when they were in their heyday that’s when I was 16, 17. I liked a lot of variety–a lot of underground stuff that people wouldn’t know, unknown cats. A lot of them were my peers. I was born and raised in Miami so even on that note, the type of hip hop that was the local hip hop wasn’t necessarily what cats might have been listening to on the West Coast or up north in New York. There was a cat named J Pure, he was in a group called Streetlight Poets. He got into a car accident in the early part of 2000, I believe and I think he’s recovering now. It was cats like that inspired me. He was a down South cat, born and raised in Florida and he had a definite Southern style to him, but it was lyrical, it was conceptual, and I liked not only just him but the group he was in as well.
How was your ABC album received in Cantonese-speaking parts of your home country?
They actually haven’t released it yet out there. There was no official promotion for it out there. We put it out this past February in the States around Chinese New Year and we wanted to wait a
little bit after Chinese New Year to launch it in Hong Kong. But being in today’s crazy world you have people who’ve been able to get a listen of it via the internet or bootleggers or by import through importers who import it from the states into stores in Hong Kong. It hasn’t really been officially launched so it’s hard to gauge cause I don’t think the masses really know about it yet over there.
Do you feel hip hop is lacking responsive and proactive songs the reason why I’m asking is cause of songs like “Fuck Rosie” and “Open Letter to Obama?”
That goes back to what I was saying about the balance, I don’t think that it’s lacking these songs it just that people don’t hear them. Let’s say there was a hot record about something that was a little out of the norm that may have been a little more challenging to the listeners or actually had some sort of message that wanted to be conveyed, when’s the last time you heard that kind of record on the radio anyway? To give em credit, maybe a Kanye or a Common. Even in that it’s far and in between. It’s a once in a blue moon type of thing when you’ll actually get a record that has somewhat of a substance in it.
Are you still involved in MTV’s Asian network?
Actually it wasn’t in Asia. MTV in the states has a subsidiary called MTV World and what that is is a conglomerate of different channels. You have MTV Desi which is an MTV but geared towards
young Indian Americans. These are channels in the states. MTV Chi is probably the one you’re thinking of and that’s for young Chinese Americans. In the last month MTV World, that whole subsidary folded. So everything under it capsized with it. I think it’s just another sign of the times. Right now in media and music nobody knows what’s going to happen next. Record sales are down and things of that nature. I think it’s a good thing because it forces people to reassess what they’re doing with the music because they’re doing all this and it’s not working, so it might be a blessing in disguise.
Have you ever thought about being an A&R?
One thing I know for sure is that I don’t see myself rhyming for a long long amount of time. What I do now is I’m a full time artist. My survival and my family sustaining all relies on the music. The thing about it is that the uncertainty sometimes will get to you. You put your heart and your passion into making these records, but you can never gauge what’s going to happen. As opposed to working
a 9-5. You’re going to this 9-5 and working 40 hours a week. You know your check is coming in. You know it’s X amount of dollars. Granted those checks may not be what you want them to be,
but it’s steady. Everything is pretty much concrete unless they just decide to lay off a bunch of employees. The thing about music is that you can’t be too reliant on it. I definitely feel that as an artist you have to be able to take what you are able to get out of it and then apply it to other manners. The A&R thing is something that would be interesting. Beyond that I think there’s other things outside of music itself, like investing in business and stuff like that.
Where do you live these days?
I’m actually between a couple of spots. I went to Hong Kong for a couple of months in late 2006. Right now I’m in New York at this moment. My family is all in New York, so I guess you could say it’s
the homebase.
What did your parents have in mind for you to do with your life?
Wow, probably not what I’m doing now. A lot of times when people ask me that they say, “so being that you’re Asian you must’ve been raised in a traditional household. What did your parents think?” I don’t even think that’s just Asian parents. I’d like to think that for the most part parents in general wanted their kids to follow a path that would be a little more stable like college and getting a certain type of job and just kind of doing better. Every parent wants their child to do better than they what they
did. I guess that’s just natural. My parents were no different. They wanted me to pursue those certain things academically and career-wise. I think the point where they saw that wasn’t going to be the case was towards the end of High School. Basically as I was graduating and kids were going to college, I was on a whole other trip. I was like “I gotta my demotape together and I got this to open mic I gotta rock next week.” I think they saw early on that [school] wasn’t going to be my thing. There were a lot of disagreements in the household. I think with everything time is best at putting things together. You fast-forward to now, 2007 and
they’re my biggest fans and biggest supporters. That’s dope.