Jay Chou

In the Asian music industry, there aren’t many artists that are acknowledged or known overseas. However, ones that are know, create waves of great influence. Having accomplishments in both film and music, Jay Chou changed the global music scene as to how people perceive Chinese pop music. Scouted in 1998 by a talent contest due to his excellent skills at songwriting and piano, Jay Chou dominated in record sales from the release of his first album titled, Jay. From 2000 to present, Jay has released one album per year, each totaling sales in the millions. Along with his remarkable album record sales, Jay has also won various film awards for his contribution of Asian cinema, such as Best Newcomer Actor in the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Golden Horse Awards.

 

Born in Linkou, Taipei County, Taiwan, Jay grew up in a typical Chinese family, where his mother was a middle school teacher, while his father worked as a biomedical researcher. Jay showed great talents at piano at age three, which resulted in intensive piano lessons from then on out under his mothers watch. Jay got his start in the entertainment business when his friend signed him up for a talent show called, Super New Talent King. From there, Jay was hired by Jacky Wu as a contract composer. Not only did he write music for himself, but also wrote for many Mandarin pop artists, included the famous Taiwanese pop singer Jolin Tsai, which resulted in his domination of over an entire generation of Chinese pop music. Through his hard work and dedication along with many nights sleeping in record studios, Jay was given the opportunity to debut by Alfa Music manager Yang Jun Rong.

Jay Chou has become an extremely influential figure in music due to his songs lyrics where they bring up many major issues, such as domestic violence, war and urbanization. As for his style of music, Jay has changed dramatically from his debut album where his music mostly focused on hip-hop and Asian rap, while his years after 1999 changed his style of fusing Chinese and Western music style, while adding elements from R&B, rock, and pop, that fuses well with themes and the story he tells through his music. Originally, Jay’s music was well-known to only Mandarin-speaking parts of the world, but due to his fusion idea of music genres, people who know Chinese also enjoyed his music.