Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

There is no question that Asians are underrepresented in hip-hop. You’ve got Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Middle Easterners…but very few Asians. If you think of Asian influence in hip-hop at all, you probably think of, and only of, Jin. Jin is from New York, and had a run on 106th & PARK several years back, but his output since then, at least qualitatively, has been somewhat sparse.

Jin has just dropped ABC, a project which finds him to all appearances firmly in control of his career. Jin, as one might expect, raps primarily in Chinese, and given that it’s a language with which most of the hip-hop audience is wholly unfamiliar, it’s a bit disconcerting at first. The beats on ABC are for the most part much stronger than they have been on Jin’s more recent work, and the result is that by the time you hit “HK Superstar,” the third track on ABC, you begin to get into the feel of things. “Yum Dum Cha” really, really works; Jin has got the goods, and everything really comes together here, a momentum he sustains throughout the remainder of the project. "Instant Noodles," a semi-languid R & B track, is intriguing, one which transcends the language barrier, while  “Whun Learn Chan,” the final track on ABC, is perhaps the most intriguing, as Jin slows things down a bit and adds a viola sample for a bit of a melancholic effect.

It takes a run or two through ABC to really appreciate what’s happening here. Jin has had some setbacks in his career, true, but ABC may well be the project that puts him over and gives him the status in the genre that he arguably deserves.