JJCC (pronounced as Double JC) is a South Korean hip-hop boyband, created by Jackie Chan. The group was signed under the label, Jackie Chan Group Korea, making the first time that the chinese actor formed a boyband and debuted them in Korea. JJCC consists of 5 members: SimBa, E.co, EDDY, San-Cheong and Prince Mak, they debuted officially on Mnet’s M! Countdown, back in the 20th of last March.
The name of the band combines the words, ‘’Jackie Chan’’, with ‘’Joint Cultures’’, therefore, ‘’Jackie Chan Joint Cultures’’. However, the band’s name pronunciation, ‘’Double JC’’, stands for ‘’Double Joy Creative’’. Overall, Chan just wanted to spread K-pop, since he’s a fan of it and sees its potencial and development, while uniting cultures and creating the double joy, through Asia. So, for that reason, JJCC also symbolizes all the effort that Jackie Chan put on the group.
Each of the member received an individual training, especializing their own personality, stunts, vocal abilities, dancing skills, songwriting and, off course, rapping. There were no boundaries, Chan always made sure they knew every type of dances they could, including popping, b-boying or ballet. Will they only sing in Korean, you ask? No, aside from singing in the Korean language, JJCC also trained English and Chinese, so they could appeal to different countries. As for the members’ nationality, four of them are Korean (SimBa, E.co, EDDY, San-Cheong), and the other one is a mix of Chinese with Australian (Prince Mak). Do you wanna know a little more detail? Eddy competed on 2012’s ‘’Master Chef Korea’’, proving his good cooking skills, while Prince Mak participated on the Chinese version of the talent show, ‘’So You Think You Can Dance’’, back in 2013. SimBa was also at a TV show, he appeared on the second season of ‘’Let’s Go Dream Team!’’, this year.
But if you think Jackie Chan is all alone in this project, you’re totally wrong! Veteran producer-composer, Choi Jun-Young, helped the boyband with their songs while serving as their executive producer. Sha-Sha Lee also, helps the Chinese actor, being the official CEO of his record label.
Korean music is still very unknown in western cultures, however, with Chan’s presence on the management of the group, JJCC received some attention from American media prior their debut. They appeared in traditional papers and news outlets, such as, New York Post, making a possibility that, because of JJCC, K-pop can become more mainstream in USA or beyond.
The band has only one single, until this day. Their official debut song is called ‘’첨엔 다 그래’’ (which can be translated to “Everyone Is Like This At First”), however, the international title was shortened to simply ‘’At First’’. It’s a track that combines a melancholy hip-hop beat with bits of R&B. Unfortunatly, member Prince Mak doesn’t appear on the song’s music video due to injuries during the shoot.
The group promoted ‘’At First’’ on music shows, such as, Music Bank or Inkigayo, however, they also performed on a charity event, created by Jackie Chan, called, “2014 Peace, Love and Friendship”, in Beijing, on the 6th of last April.
A proposed new single may be coming out mid-July, 2014 with the possible title “Heart Attack”. We can only hope that it is true.