Seven Castles

Coco Lee

                                      

August 10, 2006

 

Asian pop diva Coco Lee was born on January 17, 1975 in Hong Kong with ancestry from Harbin. She was raised in San Francisco where she grew up with her mother, stepfather and two elder sisters (her father passed away when she was young). She shared her singing talent with her two elder sisters and her mother, who was a doctor. Although the mother wanted her daughters to pursue more practical careers, the youngest Coco knew at a young age that she would become a singer.

 

During her free time, she would practice her singing abilities by singing material from her favorite pop artists, such as Madonna, Whitney Houston, George Michael and Debbie Gibson.

 

Despite their mother's former disapproval, her elder sisters put their musical talent to the test by entering local singing competitions, which proved to be successful. Being the youngest sibling, Coco followed in her sisters' footsteps and entered singing competitions as well, since she looked up to them. Her winning performances at the local singing contests are what eventually paved the way to her musical career.

 

Her success at singing competitions was not the only thing that fueled her desire to pursue a singing career: she performed for her class in junior high and received a standing ovation, and sang at a local karaoke place at Fisherman's Wharf. Her karaoke singing was what really proved how well she could sing, after her friend started playing the tape of her karaoke performances in the restaurant she worked at and people wanted to buy the tape.

 

She won the Miss Chinese-America Pageant in 1991. After she graduated from high school in 1993, she went on a vacation to Hong Kong and entered an annual singing contest, which is where most of the country's stars got their breaks in the industry. She entered the contest just for fun but ended up winning second place with her version of "Run to You" by Whitney Houston. The next day, a local record company approached her, asking her to sign with their label. She was the only performer to sing in English at the competition, and the record company noticed that her voice stood out compared to the rest of the Asian contestants.

 

1998 was an even bigger year for her. In August, she 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).

 

She sang the theme song "A Love Before Time" for the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". She was the voice behind "Mulan", the title role of the Mandarin version of Disney animated feature, co-starring Jackie Chan. She also sang the Mandarin theme song of the film.

 

While her voice has been favorably compared with that of Mariah Carey, she also does part-time acting. She was sexy, spicy and naughty in the MV of "No Doubt", from her English album "Exposed".

 

【作者: zhangliping】【访问统计:】【2006年08月10日 星期四 05:30】【 加入博采】【打印】