Jay Chou is a Taiwanese musician, singer-songwriter, music and film producer, actor and director. He was born on January 18, 1979, and was raised in Linkou, Taipei County, Taiwan. In 1998, Chou was discovered in a talent contest called New Super Talent King, where his friend entered him without knowing. Chou and his friend did not win the contest but the show’s host, Jacky Wu, took notice of Chou’s piano and song-writing skills, and soon hired him as a contract composer and paired him with novice lyricist, Vincent Fang. Chou composed all of his own songs as well as for popular Mandarin singers. Chou is trained for classical music, but Chou’s music styles consist of a combination of Chinese and Western music styles to produce songs that fuse R&B, rock and pop genres.
In 2000, Chou released his first album, titled Jay, under the record company Alfa Music. Since then, Chou has sold several million copies each year, releasing one album per year. Chou’s music career expanded throughout Asia, most notably in regions such as Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and in overseas Asian communities. In 2010, Chou has sold more than 28 million albums worldwide. In 2005, Chou started his acting career in the movie Initial D, for which he won Best Newcomer Actor in both the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Golden Horse Awards. In 2006, he starred in Curse of the Golden Flower, in which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor by Hong Kong Film Awards. Chou produced the theme song for the film Ocean Heaven starring Jet Li. Chou is currently focusing his career on directing and running his own record company, JVR Music.