Jaron Elijah Hopkins, professionally known as YAIRON, is a director, filmmaker, actor, and multidisciplinary music artist from Philadelphia. He is a graduate of Drexel University’s Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Film and Television Production. He is also a Drexel Liberty Scholar, having received a full four-year scholarship to attend the university.

As a musician, YAIRON is a published, ASCAP-registered singer-songwriter, rapper, lyricist, composer, and producer, with three official releases under the independent label Global Millennium International.

Born and raised in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, YAIRON began his creative journey as a child actor. He was heavily influenced by his parents: his mother, a local stage director and playwright, and his father, Dr. Paul Hopkins, a Doctor of Naturopathy and former music producer for Columbia Records.

He received his first professional television credit on VH1’s The Breaks (2016), directed by Seith Mann and starring Tristan Wilds, Afton Williamson, Wood Harris, Russell Hornsby, and Method Man. In 2018, he appeared in Josephine Decker’s award-winning independent film Madeline’s Madeline, alongside Helena Howard, Miranda July, Molly Parker, and Sunita Mani. He has also appeared in major motion pictures including M. Night Shyamalan’s Split (2017) and 21 Bridges (2019), starring Chadwick Boseman and directed by Brian Kirk.

Throughout high school and college, YAIRON wrote, directed, and starred in his own original productions, ranging from music videos and comedy sketches to short films and documentaries. For his senior thesis at Drexel, he shot, edited, and directed the documentary short If You’re Breathing, You Got a Shot, which chronicles the work of his father and his efforts to treat chronic disease in the community through African holistic medicine.

Currently, YAIRON is developing his debut album, Golden Boy!, a genre-blending project that fuses hip-hop, R&B, soul, electronic pop, and jazz, reflecting his diverse creative background in both film and music.