American-Chinese rapper making it bigtime in USA

nytimes.com/2003/08/12/arts/music/12JIN.html

Amazing story about an American-Chinese rapper named Jin.
Will the West let this pass?

“You wanna say I’m Chinese/Sonny here’s a reminder/ Check your Timbs/They probably say made in China,” he raps, referring to Timberland shoes. And: “Yeah, I’m Chinese/Now you understand it/I’m the reason that his little sister’s eyes are slanted/If you make one joke about rice or karate/ N.Y.P.D. be in Chinatown searching for your body.”

Jin is tight! Saw him on some kind of rappin’ battle thing long before I came. Here’s a Jin line that made me laugh:

Your girl must be an alcoholic cause she’s swallowin’ Jin.
:laughing:

Here’s a news article that you don’t have to resgister to see:
southjerseynews.com/issues/j … 62703f.htm

[quote="WALTER DAWKINS "]By WALTER DAWKINS
Gannett News Service

Just a few months ago, 21-year-old rapper Jin was burning his own CD’s and selling them outside a New York hip-hop store whenever the owner wasn’t looking.

But consider how his 2003 has gone so far. He’s landed a role in the movie 2 Fast 2 Furious, signed a record deal with the same label that released DMX and Eve, and won an unprecedented seven consecutive MC battles on BET’s Freestyle Fridays.
[snip]
His wild ride thus far has Jin confidant he will soon be accepted as a rapper, not just a Chinese rapper. He hopes he’ll be able to open doors for others, and that he might help bring cultures together. [/quote]

He sounds like a pretty fly Asian to me
If it was out right now, I’d buy his CD
Now that I think it, I’d probably take 3
Listening to stuff like that’s probably good for your

What kind of things does he rap about?

*The 'Hood? (he’s from Miami… like that white dude… Vanilla Ice. Ha!)
*Gang warfare? (Any Asian gangs in Miami? I thought Cubans ran the show.)
*His mama? (oh no! Not another Marshall Mathers).

Seems like he’ll rap about things that will make both Asians and self-deprecating white people happy- how poorly pure, innocent Asians are treated by the racist white devil:

“Yeah, I’m Chinese/Now you understand it/I’m the reason that his little sister’s eyes are slanted/If you make one joke about rice or karate/ N.Y.P.D. be in Chinatown searching for your body.” to quote Formosa’s quote.

Great. :unamused:
He should read our discussions about the use of words like ‘lao wai’ and ‘adoua’.

Probably nothing, like most rap. But what kinds of things to people post about? What kinds of things do people talk about? What kinds of things to people think about?

Probably nothing.

miltownkid’s Hip Hop 101

The quote you’re reffering to was taking from a feestyle battle of his. In a free style battle (in case you don’t know) the point is to poke fun at your oppenent as craftly as one can. Even though really mean things can be said, it’s all just fun in games in the end.

I like seeing someone making a living outside of the box. I wish him well.

Wasn’t that quote also a response to race jibes from his opponents? e.g. “…go back to making fortune cookies”

My reading comprehension skills have never been 100%, but I’m still shaking my head trying to understand how that quote exemplifies Jin’s attempts to use race to show how “poorly pure, innocent Asians are treated by the racist white devil”

Or maybe you were just aching to criticize anything non-white that is treated in a positive light?

I just checked out one of his battles…some cool shit!

Does he have anything recorded yet?

I got sent some cool Asian rap sometime back from an outfit called AZN Pride. Quite liked the music but it was the lyrics that got me. Check them out. Here’s part of one of my faves. There’s a few versions, one aimed at Mexicans, and another at African Americans. Actually I can’t find it know but they did have a site where you could listen free.

http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/a/aznpride8570/gotrice298283.html

Got Rice Bitch

It’s the azn nigga fuck the rest
Dallas to New York jigga, we the best
Vietnam to Japan to Mongolia
Philippines to Taiwan to Cambodia
Korea, ah ah, hometown China
who you got, huh?
you got shit nigga, feel the size
it’s the A-Z-N better recognize

got rice, bitch? got rice?
got food, got soup, got spice?
got brains like us? got skills like us?
got cars? got clothes? got girls like us?
wassup we the shit and we kill ya’ll fools
we got money in the bank from our family jewels
can we help it if we raid and corrupt the schools?
it don’t matter fuck the law shit we break the rules
we jack cars, pop games, yo we got the tools
flip it up, break it down then we shoot some pool,
you fuck with me, you fuck with all bitch, don’t think it’s cool
one on one fuck that it’s three on one no duels

More here:
http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/a/aznpride8570.html

HG

Grumpy alert:

Maybe I’m gettin’ old… but this sounds like a lot of shit to me. How does any of this help anyone?

It doesn’t help anyone, in fact it’s probably doing quite the opposite.

I just think it’s funny.

HG

[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]It doesn’t help anyone, in fact it’s probably doing quite the opposite.

I just think it’s funny.

HG[/quote]
Ditto.

I do agree, this really doesn’t help anyone but D.C. Lin. Sony did its best to promote Coco Lee in the US and that, thankfully failed. As far as chine rappers refering to each other as “niggas”, that is just plain stupid. Its unfortunate when blacks belittle themselves with such lables, and its just god damn annoying when the chine do the same.

Don’t sweat it. African Americans adopting the use of “niggas” was a means of taking back power from a derogatory term used against them. It does seem to have worked. Gays have done much the same with “fag” and in Australia at least, “poofter”. Lesbians too have taken to “dyke” to the point that the “dykes on bikes” have led the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras from around the late eighties.

In Australia the term “wog,” basically a blanket term for any swarthy southern European has been retaken by the “wogs” themselves. http://www.wog.com.au/article_main.asp?ArticleId=170 When I was a kid “wog” was particularly vitriolic and I have to say I was initially shocked to hear “wogs” referring to themselves as such. Sadly I can’t see the term “boong”, an especially viscious term for Aborigines (Australian) being transformed at this point in time . . . or perhaps ever.

Mixing with another thread (where I actually suggested the term “adogah”
was negative) I propose we "adogahs’ adopt it. I already have. Ok, I was bloody forced to by the in-laws!

HG

As a recovering Death Row Records addict. I prefer Speakpigeons moonlight rap these days. The stuff here, while slightly witty, is really downright pithy.

Chou

It doesn’t matter. Black rap, white rap, Chinese rap, Japanese rap, Euro rap. It all sounds awful to me.

Jin is good at battlin…but not so sure about his songs…
though he’s a ruff ryder now…got status

h’es on xanga if you guys are interested.haha

www.xanga.com/i_iz_znij

[quote=“WarMonkey”]What kind of things does he rap about?
*The 'Hood?
*Gang warfare?
*His mama?Seems like he’ll rap about things that will make both Asians and self-deprecating white people happy- how poorly pure, innocent Asians are treated by the racist white devil[/quote]
You know something?He DOES rhyme about those topics aswell as the music industry/sex/being accepted etc.
Listen
Hiphop isn’t limited to the ghetto and is UNIVERSAL.
It’s the only communication tool that’s understood anywhere you go. If he knows gangsters, why shouldn’t he write about that? The record label he’s with will definitely be gangster-related. Rappers can be any color and say whatever they want to say. Jin even mentions in his rhymes the people who point and say he’s a gimmick because of his ethnicity. He’s a step ahead of you . I know black people that like what he does. It’s not about “white devils mistreating Chinese”; it’s “Love” which is what hiphop’s all about.

I guess at the age of 26 I just can’t relate to this kind of music anymore…

You’re younger than rap (when was “Rapper’s Delight” released, that was the mid-'70s, right?), so no, that’s not it. You’re too addicted to things like hummable tunes and good musicianship that hip-hop just doesn’t have very much. You have to have your ears tuned to its frequency in order to ‘get it’.