Virgin Records
2004
Jin
The Rest Is History (Explicit)
About This Album
Jin isn't a standard rapper, and his long-delayed debut album, The Rest Is History, certainly isn't a standard rap album. It seems as though it was intended to be a standard rap album, for commercial reasons, but in the end it's not. You see, Jin is a Ruff Ryder -- that loose network of New York-area rappers who were once red-hot (back when DMX was on fire, back in the late '90s) but were by this point, in late 2004, quite passé (the only still-successful Ruff Ryders, the LOX guys, had long ago distanced themselves from the brand). However, Jin, an especially gifted Chinese-American rapper from Chinatown, isn't your typical Ruff Ryder. He has an amazing command of the English language and is best known for his ability to freestyle; his life experiences, though, are vastly different from his fellow Ruff Ryders, who are mostly all hardcore rappers. Unlike them, Jin doesn't rap about guns, drugs, money, sex, hustling, and all that stuff. He's much more earnest -- an amiable young man with good intentions who has made it this far because of an exceptional work ethic and sheer talent, not because he's down with anyone's posse or because he has a criminal back story à la 50 Cent.
Track List (try tracks 4,5,9 and 11)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.