Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jinyuer Jiao. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jinyuer, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I wrote my first song in high school after a breakup, it was more than just me wanting to express my emotions. Just because something hurt and I didn’t know what else to do. I think most people have had that feeling, the kind of emotion that you can’t talk your way out of. For me, writing music became the place it could go.

So when asked if I’m happier as an artist, I always want to reframe the question a little. Because the writing itself doesn’t always feel happy. It usually starts in the opposite place. But there’s something magical that happens when a song is finished, it becomes its own thing, separate from whatever emotions it came from. I can listen back and just enjoy it, not like a wound anymore. Transforming something heavy into something I genuinely love gives me strength. It is the closest thing I know to relief. And over time, relief feels more and more like happiness.

I don’t think about jobs outside of music very often. I considered other paths when I was younger and figuring myself out. Finding myself took some detours. After high school, I went to the University of Minnesota, thinking I might study psychology, because I had always been drawn to understanding people, and I thought maybe that was the direction I should take. But when I got there, I looked around and realized I was still in the music world. Maybe the reason I wanted to understand people wasn’t something I could learn from a textbook. That’s when it clicked. Maybe I didn’t need a different field, I just needed to find the right space for me in music. So I transferred to Berklee, and everything changed from there.

I also feel genuinely lucky to have this as my way of expressing my feelings and my inner world. There’s always a place that holds me. I think everyone needs something like that, whatever form it takes. Mine has always been this, and I’ve never once wished it were something else. Words can only go so far, but music gets somewhere words can’t always reach. I don’t take that lightly.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’ve always been someone who falls in completely, into a feeling, a sound, a world I’ve been quietly building for as long as I can remember. Music is how I keep finding my way back in.

I grew up in a musical family in Xi’an, China. My parents teach in the Xi’an Conservatory of Music. Music was always there, in the house, in everything around me. I can’t really remember a time before it. I trained as a Classical clarinetist from a young age, earned a merit scholarship to Interlochen Arts Academy, and later studied Contemporary Writing and Production at Berklee College of Music. All those years of Classical training built my foundation and opened every door that followed.

Back then I went by王铥铥 (Wang Diudiu), I released my first song “Thank You For Leaving Me（谢谢你离开我）,” a love ballad. That song took off and eventually earned Best New Artist at the Chinese Golden Melody Awards in 2018. It found an audience I didn’t expect. But looking back, it was the beginning of figuring out what I actually wanted to say.
The real shift happened at Berklee, where I got to work with many great musicians. “Glass Heart” was the first song I truly recognized myself in, and the first time I was not only the songwriter but also a producer. Nothing like what I had written before, this song lives somewhere between electronic R&B and dreamy pop. I kept getting chills when making it, like something I’d always been chasing was finally getting closer. I go by YÜR now, taken from the last two characters of my given name, 玉儿 (Yuer). I know she was always there, I just needed time to grow into her.

My music moves between Mandarin and English because some feelings can only be conveyed in that specific language. Most of my songs come back to love, something I will spend my whole life learning. It all comes from a soft place. Not the melancholy of despair, but of someone who has loved things deeply, lost some of them, and kept choosing to love anyway.

I’ve been really lucky to work with musicians I genuinely admire. I’ve gotten to sing in Chinese at the Apollo Theater with a jazz hip-hop artist, and performed at the United Nations for a Mid-Autumn celebration that brought together Chinese poetry and music. As someone who grew up in China and now makes music in New York, bringing these two worlds together feels like one of the most meaningful things I get to do. Every collaboration brings something different, and I learn from all of it. But there’s a feeling I’m always trying to protect in everything I do, a world I’ve been building in my own head that stays the same no matter what changes around it. I think that’s just who I am, and I’m happy to stay this way.

I am completing my Master of Music in Songwriting and Production at NYU. “Glass Heart” has been sitting with me since 2019. I kept learning, re-recorded the vocals, finalizing the mix, and searching for the right collaborators and sounds. I kept waiting for the right moment, until it finally felt completely right. I am so excited to share it with the world! For anyone who knew me before, I hope it surprises you. For anyone arriving for the first time: welcome to the garden at night.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

What I’m slowly unlearning is the idea that I have to measure what I’m doing by someone else’s definition of what works. That’s easier said than done. The pressure is real and I won’t pretend it isn’t. I’ve made my peace with the fact that what I’m building might take longer, might reach fewer people at first, and might not make the most financial sense. But I also knew early on what it’s like to be making music I don’t actually believe in. I’ve already done a version of that, and I knew what it felt like to listen back and not recognize myself. What I have right now, the music I’m making and the world I’ve built feels true to me. And that feels genuinely valuable to me.

Following the release of my first song “Thank You For Leaving Me,” I wrote a series of Mandarin pop ballads, watched the views rise, had some of them featured on TV shows, and even won an award. But then I realized that I wasn’t excited about it, and I wasn’t really proud of it either. I didn’t feel that urge to share it the way I do now. That’s when I knew, even if something is working, it doesn’t mean it’s yours.

What I have right now, the music I’m making and the world I’ve built, feels true to me. And that feels genuinely valuable to me. I’m still figuring it out. But I think that’s okay.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I am grateful that I get to feel the world deeply, and I have somewhere to put that feeling. I want to keep feeling things fully and stay curious about the world. I allow myself to be moved, heartbroken, surprised, delighted, anything counts, and to keep making music out of it.

Music keeps me true to myself. Making it means actually sitting with whatever I’m going through long enough to turn it into something, and that process has given me a lot of fulfillment. I love deeply, and I know love comes with the risk of loss. Even though the writing usually comes from a darker place, somewhere in the middle of making the song, something shifts. That transformation is the real reason I keep making music. Half the time I’m writing because life has given me something to say. The other half comes from living my life with a heart that dares to go back out into the world and feel things all over again, that’s where the music comes from.

There’s also something harder to explain. Some people have found a thing that exists alongside the people they love, and it is exclusive to themselves. Not a hobby or a career exactly, but something that makes them feel whole. It could be music, or history, or a craft, or anything really. Whatever it is, it gives them an anchor, something that makes the small difficulties of life feel smaller, because there’s a bigger goal they’re oriented towards.

Music is one of the ways I’m learning to be complete. I don’t know if it will always be enough, but so far, it’s given me more than I expected. And I’m still figuring out the rest.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jjiao2.wixsite.com/yuer
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yuuuuuur._/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jinyuer.jiao
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jinyuerjiao