User:Tonyreythedon/sandbox

TONY REY
Tony Rey (Chinese name: Zheng Guo Rey 曾國睿; born January 29, 1990) is a Chinese American rapper, songwriter, record producer, model, and entrepreneur. His upbringing as an Asian American brings a diverse culture into his musical influence. Tony Rey played an important role on a new hit TV show ‘Rap Of China’ with over 2 billion streams per episode in 2018. The hit TV show also featured renowned rap group Migos, legendary freestyle battle rapper MC JIN, and China icon Kris Wu. Other Pop star celebrities such as Wilber Pan, G.E.M., and OG rapper MC Hotdog were also seen on the panel of the TV Show.

Rey initially started his rap journey in 2010 from joining an audio production program in college, which brought him into the recording studio sessions. In his early rap journey, he released his first single ‘Ay Ay Ay’ off his first mixtape “Day 1 Mixtape” and remixed several popular covers, such as Airplane by B.O.B., Written In the Stars by Tinie Tempah, and Eminem Rhianna Love the Way You Lie which gained some buzz on You Tube. Rey formed a group called “Teambounce” in 2012 with songwriter/producer Mastermind (John Hua). Their collaboration lead to a series of radio mainstream songs such as ‘Get That Money’ ‘Pop My Collar’ and ‘ 1 AM JUICE’, which trended on top charts on Reverbnation and was also featured on several online radio stations.

In 2017, Tony Rey released ‘Made In Taiwan’, ‘I Be To Rap’, and ‘Fashion Killa’ and toured locally around Los Angeles. Opened up shows for Taiwanese singer 戴愛玲，You Tube Singer Jason Chen 陳以桐， EDM DJ Panda Q, Top 50 EDM DJ DVBBS, Hip hop artist TeeFlii，A$ap Rocky，Wiz Khalifa，Chief Kief ，Snoop Dogg，Chinese rapper C Block 大傻 Damnshine.

Early Life
Rey was born Zheng Guo Rey on January 29, 1990 in Taipei, Taiwan. He was born into a hardworking family which his dad worked a full time job, ran a business, and his mother worked night time grave yard shifts at the hospital. Rey lived in Taiwan attended elementary school and learned to speak and write mandarin. In early 2000s, his family moved to the states resided in Buena Park, Cypress area. For junior high and high school, Rey moved to Rowland Heights, in San Gabriel valley in 2004 where he played basketball, band, and began recording music.

His stage name Tony Rey, Tony is his first name given by his father, Rey deriving from his Chinese name 曾國睿, given by his grandfather, which means intelligence and wisdom. Rey also rapped under another alias ‘Trust’ while in his earlier rap journey with Teambounce.

By the age of 18, he started writing lyrics and recording his own hip-hop songs. His musical influences were Tupac, Biggie Smalls, Nas, Eminem, Bone Thugz, Big L, AZ, Lil Wayne, and more.

2011-2013: Forming rap duo group 'Teambounce'
Tony Rey met music producer Mastermind (John Hua) in 2011. They both shared similar interests and passion in hip-hop music. After hanging out in a few freestyle sessions to pass time, they eventually met in the home studio and recorded ‘Get That Money’, their first collaboration together. At the time, they both attended audio engineering school to learn more about recording and mixing.

More songs released ‘1 AM JUICE’, ’24 Hours’, ‘Pop My Collar’, and ‘Missing You’. Songs were radiating great feedback and engagement thru social media and they began to perform under the group ‘Teambounce’ at local hip-hop venues around Los Angeles.

2014-2016: Top 3 on ETTV Top Idol 2015 Taiwan Singing Competition
Continuing his music journey, in 2015 Tony Rey entered into a famous singing competition organized by ETTV東森新聞 (A National Media Broadcast Company in Taiwan). The singing competition was a tedious process, with on going week-to-week match that lasted up to 10 weeks. Every week the contestant was required to perform a new song in front of 3 record producer panel judges along with generating votes online from viewers. During the ETTV Top Idol finale Tony Rey performed an original hip-hop/EDM song produced by himself, called ‘Get in My Radio‘ 进入我的收音机. Which took the stage by storm and got the crowd rocking out of the chairs. He ended up placing third place, in the competition and taking home a cash price of $10,000. After the competition he traveled to Taipei with the management of ETTV to visit record labels in Taiwan.

2017: Performing BET AWARD Weekend LA LIVE
After his travel to Asia, Rey linked up with music producer Phazarraci to continue his work in music. They worked on a few successful records together ‘Made In Taiwan’, ‘I Be to Rap’, and ‘Fashion Killa’. The release of his single ‘Made In Taiwan’ was followed up quickly by a music video directed by Chris Cash (Director for Kodak Black, Ty$ Dolla Sign, Ice Cube), which featured a popular model Victoria Nguyen in the music video as lead actress. Rey first radio single ‘Stupid’ featured a major artist singer/songwriter TeeFlii of Epic Record released Aug, 2018 (Produced by Dj Official under Dj Mustard’s Label) After this song was released, it lead to a performance opportunity at BET AWARD out door stage during the weekend. Tony Rey was the first Asian American to have ever performed at the BET WEEKEND Award. But due to limited marketing budget, and growing expense of recording/video production cost, the song did not receive the anticipated results but lead to a performance at the BET AWARDs weekend live. Tony Rey was the first Asian American to have performed at the BET Weekend. During this time, Rey also started a fashion business on the side to help generate income to pay for bills along way of his music journey. He started a bag/luggage collection “Tote&Carry” in partnership with Stitch Doctor (Tony Dennis) from Atlanta, Georgia. Tote&Carry was showcased at MAGIC Fashion Las Vegas Convention and distributed into over 100 boutiques nationwide.

2018: Rap Of China 2018 and China Music Tour
Having to deal with financial difficulty to pursue his music dreams, Tony Rey did not give up. In May of 2018 he auditioned for the ‘Rap Of China’ a new hit TV show based in China. The TV Show held regional audition places in China: Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and outside territories Los Angeles, Taiwan, Australia totaling up to over 20,000 applicants. Tony Rey entered the Los Angeles regional audition performing freestyles in both English and Chinese and rapping on stage in front of a panel of celebrities, a 60 second snippet of his original song. He was then given a 3 pass by celebrity producers Migos, MC JIN, and Kris WU and handpicked to fly back to Beijing to become an official casted member for the Hip Hop Reality TV Show along with 2 other contestants Chino Young (杨晓川) and Lil Castles (Peter Chen). Rap of China showcased many upcoming Chinese hip-hop artists all with their own unique style and identity. The contestants came from different regions around China with different cultural up bringing and language dialect. The recording of the TV show lasted from June until September of 2018, with a total of 12 episodes that was aired in China on the largest entertainment platform IQIYI 爱奇艺 with over 2 billion viewers per episode. Finishing up the Rap Of China TV show in Top 15, Tony Rey was signed into a management deal with IQIYI 爱奇艺, and began touring and performing around China. His first music tour in China called West meets East ‘东成西就’ 北美兄弟 started in October 2018. Tony Rey performed with other popular Chinese hip-hop performers 杨晓川Chino Yang, 陳澤希Lil Em, 老司机Laoz G，and 洪伟豪CoolBoyEVO in a 2 hour line up at live houses, clubs, and concert arenas. They performed in 7 major cities around China: Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Xiamen. The show was exciting, full of energy, and unforgettable engaging with fans from all over China.

2019: “Ice’d Out Baby” Album
In November 2018, Rey revealed that after his tour in China he decided to work on a new album that he was planning to release in both in United States and China in 2019. The album consists of 10 songs, which reflect his personal experience in traveling to China, shady business that occurred in the business, life-changing sacrifices he had to make, and a lot of personal struggles he was dealing with that defined him as an artist in the hip-hop music.

The main single off the album “On The Way”, he talks about nights where he did not have a place to live, “Nights I be bumming on couches and renting out houses and hiding it all from peers”. And dealing with other artists and managers in the music industry. “Sharks in the water they smell my emotions got rid of my feelings now I’m colder than ice / some of these artists they shaking ya hands and saying they down but they turn around n bite.” Other songs TBDL, No Thanks, Lock it up. All are expected to do very well on all music streaming platforms. Tony Rey plans to tour in the U.S. and China during summer of 2019 with another expected release of a summer EP in 2019.

Personal Life
Rey is a very social and positive individual. His Christianity beliefs make him different than many hip-hop artists. He is very connected to his own Asian culture and community. He is a fashion designer and consultant as well. He enjoys traveling to Asia, dancing at parties, and living a wild entertained lifestyle. He is currently single but planning to be in marriage later on in his career and establishing a family by 2025.