- Coco Lee
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Coco Lee
李玟
Chinese name 李玟 Chinese name 李美林 (Traditional) Chinese name 李美林 (Simplified) Pinyin Lǐ Wén (Mandarin) Jyutping Lei5 Man4 (Cantonese) Birth name 李美林 Ancestry Hong Kong Origin Hong Kong Born 17 January 1975
Hong KongOther name(s) Ferren Lee Occupation singer, songwriter, actress Genre(s) Pop, C-pop, dance-pop, hip hop, R&B, adult contemporary, soul Label(s) Capital Artists, Fancy Pie, Sony Music Entertainment, 550 Music, Epic, Sony BMG, Warner Music Years active 1993–present Awards-
Awards 1994
This list is not exhaustive.
Top 10 Most Popular Idol
Best New Artist awards
the Golden Dragon Chart Awards 1996
Best-selling album (Coco Lee) of 1996
Best MV (Yesterday's passion)
Awards 1997
Best Female Artist by the Best 10 Artists
MTV Asia Music Awards 1998
Best Album (DiDaDi)
Best Music Video (DiDaDi)
MTV/CCTV Chinese Music Awards 1999
Artist of the year
Radio Music Awards 1999 (Singapore)
Best international newcomer
Yale and Harvard Universities 2000
Asian-American of the year
Best Performer of the year
Awards in Hong Kong 2001
Best Mandarin Female Artist
Top 10 Artist of the Year
International Golden Melody Awards Malaysia 2001
Most Popular Stage Showmanship Female
M'sia Awards 2002
best song
MTV/CCTV Chinese Music Awards 2002
Best female artist of the year
MTV Style Awards China 2003
Breakthrough International Artist of the Year
Asia's Most Outstanding Performer[1]
Lycra Style Awards 2004
Asian Style Artist[2]
10 Best dressed of 2004
Changchun festival 2004
Best new talent (Master of everything)
QQ Star Awards 2010
Female Singer of the Year 2009
Album of the Year 2009
Hit Music Awards 2010
Best song of the year 2009 (BYOB)
Best female artist in Taiwan and Hong Kong area of the year 2009
Awards 2010
China’s Top 10 Barbie Dream Girls
Coco Lee Traditional Chinese 李玟 Simplified Chinese 李玟 Cantonese Jyutping Lei5 Man4 Hanyu Pinyin Lǐ Wén Transcriptions Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Lǐ Wén Cantonese (Yue) - Jyutping Lei5 Man4 Coco Lee (Chinese: 李玟; pinyin: Lǐ Wén), born on 17 January 1975,[3] also known by her official English name as Ferren Lee, is a pop singer, songwriter, record producer and actress. Coco started her career in Hong Kong but became popular in Taiwan (and later, all around the globe), therefore, in Asia, she is widely and commonly considered as a Taiwan artist. She was born to a Chinese Malaysian father and a Hong Kong Chinese mother.[4] She is the only Asian artist to have multiple top-three singles in the MTV Asia Hitlist. "Do You Want My Love" also entered the US music charts. Her first full-length English album was Just No Other Way. She speaks Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese and English fluently.
Lee is the first and only Chinese person to perform in the Oscars, singing the Academy Award nominee for Best Original Song, "A Love Before Time", from the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, in the 73rd Academy Awards in Los Angeles.[5] She provided the voice of Mulan in the Mandarin version of Disney's animated feature of the same name.[6]
In 2001, Asia Weekly magazine named Lee as one of the most powerful people in Asia on their Power 50 list.[7]
Contents
Biography
Early life and discovery
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Lee is the youngest of three children. She has two elder sisters, Nancy, who was her manager before, and Carol. Her father died when she was young. When she was 9 years old, her mother brought Lee and her sisters to live in San Francisco.
There, Lee went to Presidio Middle School. After secondary school where she was the volleyball team captain, she attended Raoul Wallenberg Traditional High School in San Francisco, where she was student council president for four years in a row. In 1991, she represented her high school in the Miss Teen Chinatown Pageant, winning first place. She also won first place in a local karaoke contest. She started medical (biology) studies at the University of California Irvine.
Career beginnings
After Lee's high school graduation in 1992, she went back to Hong Kong to see her sisters' participate in the Miss Hong Kong Pageant. While there, she became first runner-up in the 12th Annual New Talent Singing Awards by singing Whitney Houston's Run to you. The following day, Capital Artists asked her to sign a contract with them.
She made her debut by appearing in several compilation albums, such as Red Hot Hits '93 Autumn Edition (火熱動感93勁秋版). In 1994, working with Fancy Pie Records, she released her first solo albums in Mandarin, Love from Now On (愛就要趁現在) and Promise Me (答應我). In 1995, she released an English language cover album, Brave Enough to Love, as well as her third Mandarin album, Woman in Love (被愛的女人).
Work with Sony
In 1996, Lee signed a contract with Sony Music Entertainment. "Coco Lee" became the best-selling album of 1996 in Asia, notably with the song Yesterday's passion (往日情). Her second English cover album was "CoCo's Party". In 1997, she released the Mandarin album "Sincere" as well as a self-titled Cantonese album. In 1998, the Mandarin album Di Da Di was released and sold to 1 million copies in less than 3 months.
For her next album Sunny day, Lee registered the song Colors of the world for the opening of the Football World Cup,[8] and the song The answer (答案) for the Chinese movie Bishonen. Walt Disney Pictures hired her to sing the theme song "Reflection" (自已) and be the voice of the heroine Fa Mulan in the Mandarin version of Mulan. The English version of the song appears on her maxi single Take a chance on love (碰碰看愛情) as well as Missing you in 365 days (想你的365天), the soundtrack of the cartoon Lotus lantern.
On August, 1998, Coco performed in Taiwan to a concert audience of more than 30,000 fans, the second largest concert audience in Taiwan (a feat that only Michael Jackson has claimed in the past).
In 1999, Lee sang When you tell me that you love me with Julio Iglesias. This song appears on the Asian version of his album My life : The greatest hits. She sang Married you (你讓我有感覺), the theme song of the movie Notting Hill which appears on her Mandarin album Today til' forever (今天到永遠).
She performed in Michael Jackson's "Michael Jackson and friends" charity concert.
International career
In 1999, 550 Music represented Lee with her stateside debut album, Just No Other Way. Her love song Before I Fall In Love was included in the soundtrack of the movie Runaway Bride. She had a duet called Can't get over with singer Kelly Price. In 2000, she got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[9][unreliable source?] Lee recorded from The United States the Chinese songs "We meet the future" and "Hand in hand" for SARS[clarification needed] with other artists including Wang Lee Hom, Stephanie Sun, Elva Hsiao and Jolin Tsai.
Back in China, she released a Mandarin album You & me. The track True lover (真情人) held n#1 spot for 13 weeks.[citation needed]
In 2001, Lee sang the song A Love Before Time for the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This song appears in English in the soundtrack album and in Mandarin (月光愛人) in her album named Promise Coco released in October 2001. It contains So crazy, Dao ma dan (刀馬旦) written by the singer Jay Chou, Baby I'm sorry (Baby對不起) a cover of A Puro Dolor by Son By Four, or I'm still in love, the theme song for the movie Serendipity.
In 2002, Lee released her remix album D. Is Coco (Dance is Coco). She sang a song against tobacco called From the beginning til' the end (煙絲萬縷) with singer Jacky Cheung. She sang the anti racism song A dream of one with Korean singer Jin Young Park.
In 2003, she performed with Shaggy at the "MTV Asia awards" in Singapore and also presented the show with him.
Lee co-starred in the Chinese comedy movie Master of Everything (自娱自乐) with John Lone, which won the Best Foreign Film award in the 2005 Beverly Hills Film Festival. In 2004, as the YouthAIDS ambassador, she attended the global AIDS conference in Bangkok, Thailand as the representative of the Asian artists to meet various youth groups discussing what she can do to educate them about AIDS. In 2005, Sony BMG released her second English album, Exposed. This album contains the Korean soundtrack of Charlie's Angels 2 called All around the world and a duet called No doubt with Indian rapper Blaaze. The album was banned in Mainland China for sexy lyrics in a few songs such as Touch or So good.[10]
Lee's Just Want You (要定你) was released on 22 September 2006. It features the single "Hip-Hop Tonight" with Vanness Wu and Never ending love (愛不停) a cover of Kylie Minogue's Boombox.
On 22 September 2007, Lee returned to the United States for two live concerts, the first at Harrah's in San Diego and the second at the Shoreline Amphitheater in San Francisco, with special guest Alex To.
In 2008, Lee was chosen to sing one of the Olympic songs, "Forever Friends", opposite Sun Nan.[11] She changed her record company to work with Warner Music (Taiwan) from Music Nation.
In 2009, Lee ranked No.15 on E! Entertainment's list of the world's 25 sexiest pop divas.[12]
On 14 August, she released her new Mandarin album East to west (CoCo的東西) with Warner Music. It contains the songs "Party time", "Turn" (流轉) which is the soundtrack of the movie "The Legend of Silkboy" (世博总动员-湖丝仔) for the Shanghai World Expo 2010, the cover of Jay Sean's "Maybe" called "Love now" (愛要現在), and "BYOB" ("Bring Your Own Bag") a song to encourage people to bring and recycle their own shopping bags to save the environment.
She recorded the song "Smile Shanghai" (微笑上海) with other artists including JJ Lin, Andy Lau, Jam Hsiao or Jane Zhang for Shanghai World Expo 2010.
A limited version of her album East to west was released on 17 March 2010. It contains 3 more songs : Hello C, a remix of Turn and Younger and longer (美夢) which is Barbie's 50th Anniversary song.
On 27 March 2010, Lee began her "East2West" World Tour Concert in Taipei at Taipei Arena. She pursued at the Encore Theatre in Wynn Casino in Las Vegas on 3 and 4 July, then in Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore on 2 October[13] and in Nanning on 16 December.
Current career
In March 2011, Lee was one of many artists participating in the recording of "Artists 311 Love Beyond Borders" (愛心無國界311燭光晚會) official theme song called Succomb not to sorrow (不要輸給心痛) in Cantonese version.
On 7 April 2011, her song Dreams on oriental seas (梦在东方的海上) featuring Sun Nan was broadcasted. It has been named as he theme for the 14th FINA world championships, that took place in Shanghai on July, 16, 2011.[14]
On 14 April 2011, Coco registered How am I supposed to live without you with Michael Bolton. The song appears on Michael's album Gems: The Duets Collection (Asian Edition) released on October 3 in the UK[15], on October 7 in Taiwan and October 11 in the US[16].
On 8 June 2011, Lee announced that she set up her own studio. That way, she's more free to write and produce music that she loves.
On 25 June, her song Four seas alliance (四海盟約), the theme song for the 2011 China television drama All men are brothers (水滸傳), was broadcasted.
For her wedding, Coco registered the song I just wanna marry u (Chinese and English version), which was released on October, 24, 2011.
A new album is planned to be released next year.
Private life
Lee married Canadian businessman Bruce Philip Rockowitz on 27 October 2011 in Hong Kong.
Discography
Studio albums
Lee on the billboard of Pure Yoga in Hong Kong
- Fancy Pie Records releases
- June 1994: Love from Now On (愛就要趁現在)
- December 1994: Promise Me (答應我)
- June 1995: Brave Enough to Love (勇敢去愛; all-English album)
- September 1995: Woman in Love (被愛的女人)
- December 1995 : You are in my heart concert (你在我心上)
- August 1996 : Beloved Collection (情人被愛)
- May 1997: Dance with the wind (玟風起舞)
- Sony Music releases
- March 1996: CoCo Lee (Yesterday love)
- November 1996: CoCo's Party
- June 1997: Sincere/每一次想你 (Everytime I think of you)
- November 1997: CoCo Lee/首張廣東專輯 (Be careful next time)
- January 1998: DiDaDi Hints (暗示/過完冬季) (HMV Music Chart: #1)
- July 1998: Sunny Day
- December 1998 : Crazy for Coco Concert (萬人迷)
- May 1999: Today Until Forever (今天到永遠)
- 550/Epic Music release
- November 1999: Just No Other Way (HMV Music Chart: #1)
- Sony Music releases
- January 2000 : The Best of My Love
- August 2000: True Lover You and Me (真情人)
- October 2001: Promise CoCo
- June 2002 : D.IS CoCo (愛琴海新歌 + 電音精選)
- Sony BMG releases
- March 2005: Exposed (HMV Music Chart: #1)
- September 2006: Just Want You (HMV Music Chart: #1)
- May 2008 : 1994–2008 Best Collection
- Warner Music releases
- August 2009: East To West (CoCo 的東西)
Maxi singles
- Sony Music releases
- April 1998 : Di da di color remix
- August 1998 : Take a chance on love
- 550 Music releases
- 1999 : Do you want my love
- 2000 : Wherever you go
Compilations
- Capital Artists releases
- June 1993 : Red hot hits 93' Autumn edition[17] (火熱動感93'勁秋版)
- Capital Artists and Fancy Pie releases
- September 1994 : Red hot hits 94' Love Party[18] (火熱動感94'戀愛Party)
- November 1994 : Statement of love, duet songs (愛情宣言, 情歌對唱)
- December 1994 : Merry Christmas (聖誕禮讚)
- 1995 : I'm still your lover (best of Love from now on and Promise me)[19]
Videography
Lee (on the left), performing "Hip Hop Tonight"- Fancy Pie releases
- 1995 : Foot print
- 1995 : You're in my heart concert
- Sony Music releases
- 1996 : Coco's workout camp
- 1998 : Coco in Italy
- 1998 : Di da di
- 1998 : Sunny day
- 1999 : Million fans concert
- 550 Music releases
- 2000 : The Video Collection
- Sony Music releases
- 2002 : Coco so crazy
- 2002 : All my Coco
- 2004 : Master of everything
External links
- Coco Lee's official Website (English/Chinese)
- Coco Lee's Website (English)
References
- ^ "MTV Style Awards China 2003 Winners". 29 November 2003. http://www.cocolee.net/home/news/news-e-03-11.html. Retrieved 2008-03-11.
- ^ "Lycra Style Awards". 27 November 2004. http://english.cri.cn/2007/2004-11-27/67@172922.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-07.
- ^ "Coco Lee- Biography, Gallery, Forum and Videos". 1 February 2002. http://www.perfectpeople.net/celebrity-star/209/coco-lee.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-01.
- ^ http://dailynews.sina.com/bg/ent/hktwstar/sinchewdaily/20091210/2149952058.html. Dailynews.sina.com (11 December 2009). Retrieved on 2011-09-10.
- ^ "CoCo Lee – A Love Before Time(73rd Oscar)". 2004. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P96lPMJSECY. Retrieved 2008-02-01.
- ^ www.askmen.com/women/singer/38_coco_lee.html
- ^ "Chinese Pop Music History 20 Years Special – CoCo Lee". 12 December 2007. http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4c13ebfd0100813j.html. Retrieved 2007-12-12.
- ^ Various • Allez!Ola!Ole! The World Cup 98 • cdtrrracks. Cdtrrracks.com. Retrieved on 2011-09-10.
- ^ 中华玟迷联盟的微博 新浪微博-随时随地分享身边的新鲜事儿. Weibo.com (27 April 2011). Retrieved on 2011-09-10.
- ^ China: Hong Kong pop star CoCo Lee’s new album banned. Freemuse. Retrieved on 2011-09-10.
- ^ Sun Nan and Coco Lee film 'Forever Friends' music video – The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. En.beijing2008.cn. Retrieved on 2011-09-10.
- ^ Coco Lee, No.15 Sexiest Pop Divas in the World. English.cri.cn (27 February 2009). Retrieved on 2011-09-10.
- ^ Singapore Indoor Stadium. Sportshub.com.sg. Retrieved on 2011-09-10.
- ^ Calendar | Event detail :: 14th FINA World Championships. Fina.org (16 July 2011). Retrieved on 2011-09-10.
- ^ http://www.cdwow.com/CD/michael-bolton-gems-the-duets-album-asian-edition/dp/23602575/41368811
- ^ http://www.amazon.com/Gems-Duets-Album-Michael-Bolton/dp/B005LY46QY/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1316647566&sr=1-1
- ^ http://lh4.ggpht.com/_x9bPXf77xGc/StXTfYwlTUI/AAAAAAAAHx8/zlAM28zZfqg/s800/lalala01.jpg
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ "HK POP COCO LEE 我依然是你的情人 FIRST ALBUM HONG KONG CD 1ST – eBay (item 300371867867 end time Mar-28-10 01:56:29 PDT)". http://cgi.ebay.com/HK-POP-COCO-LEE-FIRST-ALBUM-HONG-KONG-CD-1ST_W0QQitemZ300371867867QQihZ020QQcategoryZ307QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3286.m7QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D4%26ps%3D63.
Categories:- 1975 births
- Cantopop singers
- Hong Kong Mandopop singers
- English-language singers
- Hong Kong actors
- Hong Kong singers
- Hong Kong emigrants to the United States
- Living people
- Naturalized citizens of the United States
- New Talent Singing Awards contestants
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