China Mac


Raymond Yu, known professionally as China Mac, is an American rapper, entertainer, and former gang member.

Early years

Yu was born and raised in Brooklyn to Chinese immigrants, from Hong Kong. He moved into a group home at the age of 8. Yu joined the Ghost Shadows gang when he was 12. In his teenage years, he would partake in freestyle rap battles with other kids at the juvenile detention center.

Career

2000–2013: Incarceration

At the age of 18, Mac was sentenced to three years in prison for gang related crimes in 2000.
In November 9, 2003, Mac was involved in an altercation with MC Jin at a bar in Chinatown, Manhattan, where he shot Jin's acquaintance, rapper Christopher "LS" Louie, in the back. Mac later went on the run for over a year and was apprehended in Seattle, Washington when he tried to leave the country with a fake passport. In prison, he was nicknamed "China Mac" by the Mac Ballers gang. He was released on parole in November 2013 and founded the Red Money Records record label and pet store with the money he saved up while in prison.

2014–present: Music production

Mac returned to prison for an accused parole violation and was later released in 2017. Since then, he has uploaded video content, including the food show Mac Eats, onto his YouTube channel, China Mac TV.
Mac released his album MITM in 2017.
In 2018, Mac was a prominent critic of Lil Pump's single Butterfly Doors, which used the pejorative ching chong slur.
In 2019, he released the dual EP, Yin and Yang. That same year, Mac released a Chinese/Spanish record with Tali Goya.

Personal life

His father was a part of the Chinese-American gang, Flying Dragons, that was active in the 1980s.