Y'ALL GONNA LEARN CHINESE
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I work at an office very close to the Hot 97 studios. Our company has told us to expect protesters outside tomorrow morning, picketing the station for playing the racist Tsunami Song on one of its morning shows.

Today's Daily News story about the song and the protests mentioned that Hot 97 was playing a song by Chinese-American rapper Jin in an attempt to be more sensitive. Jin's music is fairly run-of-the-mill hip-hop, but his life story is pretty interesting.

Jin grew up in North Miami Beach, and an early fascination with LL Cool J led him to become a battle rapper of increasing renown at his mixed-race school. But the anti-Asian jokes that his opponents used in their rhymes always threw him off his game, until he figured out how to respond:

A year after Jin graduated from high school, his parents closed their restaurant and moved the family to New York City.... Two weeks after moving to New York, Jin met Kamel Pratt, who spotted him in an impromptu rhyme session at the corner of Broadway and Eighth Street and not long after became his manager. Pratt introduced him to the local hip-hop scene. He had a lot of time to devote, given that Jin was his first and only client, but he eventually got him his big break, an audition on ''Freestyle Friday.'' ...

The broadcast is a segment of ''106 & Park,'' a music-video show on Black Entertainment Television. Battle M.C.'s like Jin see the show as the fastest route to stardom. In February 2002, Jin was offered a spot on the show in a battle against a rapper named Hassan, the reigning ''Freestyle Friday'' champ. Neither Pratt nor Jin was impressed with Hassan; they figured his main weapon would be the sort of Asian jokes to which Jin was by now well accustomed -- corner stores, Bruce Lee, fortune cookies, fried won tons and, of course, slanted eyes.

Since the rules of ''Freestyle Friday'' dictated that Jin go first, he needed to make sure he landed an early crippling shot. He opened with a few standard punch lines about Hassan's name and dress. Then he lowered the boom: ''Yeah, I'm Chinese, now you understand it/I'm the reason your 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.''

The crowd went wild. The show's hosts, Free and A.J., nodded and smiled. DJ Fatman Scoop, a New York radio personality, gave the champion a stern look and said: ''Hassan. Get focused. Immediately.'' But Hassan was too slow; he apparently couldn't alter his original strategy. Instead he offered an Asian joke that landed with a thud, and then with 15 seconds still on the clock, he stopped in midflow, sighed into the mike, lowered his head and quit. Jin went on to win ''Freestyle Friday'' for a record-setting seven straight weeks, and by the end of his final week, Ruff Ryders had offered him a contract.

posted by Maximus | 6:34 pm EST | 2005.01.27 | link

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