Coco Lee Brews up More Hot Asian Albums

Coco Lee Brews up More Hot Asian Albums

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Asian-American singer Coco Lee serves up a hot cup of R&B-infused pop in Chinese and English, but her career hasn't always been as smooth as her rhythms.

Born in Hong Kong and raised in San Francisco, she vaulted beyond her largely Asian fan base last year by singing the theme song for the Hollywood movie "Runaway Bride" starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.

"It's easier for me to sing in English because I understand every single word," she told a news conference before her concert in Singapore on Friday, sounding like a typical American teenager. "I couldn't speak a word of Mandarin six years ago."

Dressed in a shimmery bronze sweater, matching scarf and blue-black jeans, the svelte singer known for her on-stage gyrations said Chinese lyrics at first had to be romanised before she could even pronounce the words.


Coco Lee Brews up More Hot Asian Albums

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But 14 Mandarin albums later, she now manages to write simple songs in the complex, four-tone language.

Together with an English release early this year, Lee has sold more than seven million albums.

She starts work on her second English one at the end of next year, incorporating tracks by Asian songwriters, and also plans her first Mandarin/Cantonese album for mid-2001.

(www.chinadaily.com.cn)