| Coco Lee 李玟 |
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| 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 Kong |
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| Other 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 | ||
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Awards
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| Coco Lee | |||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 李玟 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 李玟 | ||||||||||
| Cantonese Jyutping | Lei5 Man4 | ||||||||||
| Hanyu Pinyin | Lǐ Wén | ||||||||||
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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 an American pop singer, songwriter, record producer and actress. Coco started her career in Hong Kong but, after becoming popular in Taiwan, she was widely considered to be a Taiwan artist. She was born to a Chinese Indonesian father [4] and a Hong Kong Chinese mother.[5] 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.
As a Chinese-American,Lee is the first and only person of Chinese ethnicity 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.[6] She provided the voice of Mulan in the Mandarin version of Disney's animated feature of the same name.[7]
In 2001, Asia Weekly magazine named Lee as one of the most powerful people in Asia on their Power 50 list.[8]
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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.
Lee married Canadian businessman Bruce Philip Rockowitz on 27 October 2011 in Hong Kong.
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).
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,[9] 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.
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.[10] Lee recorded from The United States the Chinese songs "We meet the future" and "Hand in hand" for SARS 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.
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.[11]
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.[12] 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.[13]
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[14] and in Nanning on 16 December.
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.[15]
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,[16] on October 7 in Taiwan and October 11 in the US.[17]
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 in 2012.
Studio albums
Maxi singles
Compilations
Videography
External links
References
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