2001–2006: 106 & Park and Ruff Ryders While in New York, Jin participated in many
rap battles with his peers. The night of the ceremony, he announced that he had signed a deal with the
Ruff Ryders Entertainment label. His first single under Ruff Ryders was titled "
Learn Chinese" featuring Haitian rapper
Wyclef Jean. It contained a sample from song "
Blind Man Can See It", by
James Brown (also sampled by
Das EFX and
Lord Finesse). The second single for the album was originally supposed to be "I Got a Love", featuring and produced by
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 on the
Billboard Top 200 albums chart. The two singles, "Learn Chinese" and "Senorita", were not major mainstream successes and the album only sold 19,000 units in its first week. 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 collaborated in 2005 with Queens-born rapper
Creature on his song "Never Say Die," which also featured
Slug and
Busdriver. 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.
2006–2007: Independent label Jin released two albums in 2006. The first,
100 Grand Jin, was a mixtape 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 his MySpace, Jin mentioned that he was working on another English album named "Birthdays, Funerals and Things in Between". Jin premiered the song, "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. In 2006, the
PlayStation 2/
Xbox video game
NBA Ballers: Phenom featured MC Jin as one of the
rapper characters along with
Trikz,
Ludacris and
Hot Sauce. He released his first all-
Cantonese language album,
ABC, in 2007. and was once deemed "the changing face of
Cantopop." 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 singer Hanjin Tan () to release another Cantonese album (Buy one get one free). Jin also released a music video for his English single "Angels". During his time in Hong Kong, Jin has appeared in films such as
Gallants and
Bruce Lee, My Brother. 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. 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. After the
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Jin participated in the
Artistes 311 Love Beyond Borders celebrity charity concert on April 1, 2011, to help raise funds for Japan's disaster recovery effort. The 3-hour event raised over HK$26 million (USD$3.3 million). On May 16, 2011, Jin released the track "AIYA" featuring label-mate, Toestah. On August 8, 2011, Jin released his second Cantonese album, (Homecoming), in Hong Kong. The album features Teesa, Hollis, Stacie Bollman,
Tim Be Told, Bére, and Storm. The album was not a commercial success. Jin began performing
stand-up comedy in New York City in 2015. Jin has since released several songs in Mandarin, including "Zero", a promotional song for the 2017 movie
The Foreigner starring Hong Kong actor
Jackie Chan, who considers Jin to be his friend. In 2021, he joined the cast of
Call Me by Fire as a contestant. He was eliminated in episode 5, only to return later in episode 6, following fellow contestant
Henry Huo Zun's withdrawal from the show in light of recent controversies. ==Personal life==