Joey Yung

Joey Yung
Yung at the Little Day signature activity in V City, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong, September 2013
Chinese name	容祖兒 (traditional)
Chinese name	容祖儿 (simplified)
Pinyin	Róng Zǔ'ér (Mandarin)
Jyutping	Jung4 Zo2-ji4 (Cantonese)
Ancestry	Xinhui, Guangdong, China
Born	(1980-06-16) 16 June 1980 Hong Kong
Other name(s)	Joey Cho B (祖B) Jo-Jo (祖祖) Essien (艾辛) Joey Essien (容艾辛)
Occupation	Singer, actress
Genre(s)	Cantopop, Mandopop, dance-pop, jazz
Instrument(s)	Vocals, guitar
Voice type(s)	Lyric Mezzo-soprano
Label(s)	EEG, Rock, Avex
Associated acts	Jacky Cheung Roman Tam Tiger, Dragon and Leopard (with Twins) Hacken Lee Grasshopper
Education	Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education, Diploma in Tourism
Official website	joeyyung.hk
Awards MTV Asia Awards Favorite Artist, Hong Kong 2005

Joey Yung (born 16 June 1980) is a Hong Kong singer and actress. She is signed to Emperor Entertainment Group. Yung has won numerous awards including the prestigious JSG "Most Popular Female Singer" and "Ultimate Best Female Singer – Gold" awards a record breaking nine times, thus emerging as one of the premier Cantonese singers in Hong Kong. She is ranked 63rd on the 2014 Forbes China Celebrity 100, making her the most 'powerful' Hong Kong-based female singer in 2014.^[1] She has earned 80 million HKD (10.3 million USD) in 2014.^[2]

Biography

Early career

Yung attended Ma On Shan Lutheran Primary School, and was classmates with Wong Cho-lam when she was in 6th grade. They were also fellow alumni with actress Priscilla Wong.

At the age of 15, Yung participated in many singing contests, including the Big Echo Karaoke Singing Contest, in which she was given the opportunity to be an artist of Go East Entertainment Co. Ltd. However, she did not earn much recognition from Go East, and their contract ended after she recorded the song The First Time I Want to be Drunk, as the theme song for a film.

After that, Yung continued attending school while working as a clerk and helping her mother manage a fashion boutique. She was later introduced to Pony Canyon by an ex-colleague in Go East. However, Pony Canyon withdrew its business in Hong Kong not long after Yung joined the company, causing her singing career to be terminated once again. A couple of years later in 1999, she started taking singing lessons by the late Roman Tam and Teresa Carpio.

1999–2000

In 1998, Yung joined Emperor Entertainment Group (EEG). Her talent was appreciated and she was sent abroad for training to enhance her singing skills in the following year. She also followed her mentor Roman Tam, who was also in EEG, on concert tours to gain experience as a performer. By that point, she had exited Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education and gained Diploma in Tourism, when she was on her final year of the Bachelor program.

On 30 September 1999, Yung's debut album EP was released. It charted on the IFPI Album Charts (based on sales) for 23 weeks, breaking the record for the most consecutive weeks on the IFPI album chart in Hong Kong previously held by Jacky Cheung's 1992 album "真情流露", and sold 130,000 copies in Hong Kong alone. In later prize-giving ceremonies held by different media organisations, she won many awards together with Cecilia Cheung.

In January 2000, Yung's apartment was set ablaze. In the same year, she made an appearance in her debut film, Winner Takes All, and her first television drama series The Green Hope. That year, she also released two CDs, including her second EP, Don't Miss, and her first studio album, Who Will Love Me. At the same time, she became the spokesperson of many brands, such as Four Seas, the Red Cross Movement, and Netvigator. Yung also held her first concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum, titled Joey Yung's See You Everywhere Live Concert.

2001–2002

In 2001, Yung released her first compilation album Love Joey, which later became the Best Selling Album of the Year. She then released two Cantonese albums, All New Summer Holiday and Solemn on Stage. In November, she held her second live concert and first concert series, H20+ Solemn on Stage Joey Yung Live in Concert 2001 at the Hong Kong Coliseum, and began her singing career in Taiwan after she released her first Mandarin album Honestly. By the end of the year, her career reached a crisis as a result of strained vocal cords and criticism of being plump.

In 2002, Yung received the approval of her company to take dancing and make-up lessons abroad. Two months later, she came back to Hong Kong and released her Cantopop album Something About You. She then became the spokesperson of Nissin and Nikon. At the end of the year, she released her second collection album Love Joey II.

2003

	"My Pride" (2003) This song launched Yung to new heights, reaping 4 awards and was soon named as "Cantopop Queen of Hong Kong".
Problems playing this file? See media help.

In 2003, Yung's song, My Pride (the theme song of the TV commercial for Banyan Garden developed by Cheung Kong Holdings) became very popular. In the fad of slimming in Hong Kong, Yung became the spokesperson of a slimming parlor and had her body slimmed, presenting herself with a supposedly new sexy image. She held her third concert Joey Yung Live Show Up! at the Hong Kong Coliseum. At end of the year, Yung dominated all the major music awards ceremonies, winning a handful of prestigious awards including the JSG "Most Popular Female Singer" award (making her the second youngest singer in history to have won this prize, the youngest being Anita Mui). In addition, Yung was also the recipient of the Gold Song Gold Awards (金曲金獎) at the JSG Best Ten Music Awards Presentation with her hit single "My Pride"(我的驕傲). She also won her first "Best Female Singer Gold" award at the CRHK Music Awards, becoming youngest singer to ever win this award. Following this, she began her worldwide "Show Up World Tour", which included stops in Canada, Australia, the United States, Mainland China, Macau, and Malaysia.

Joey Yung concert in 2006

2004–2006

In 2004, Yung continued her sexy image with Nin9 2 5ive and her first photo album The Real Joey, Glamour in London. Her photo album was greatly accepted by the public and ran out of stock shortly after its release. Her second album in 2004, Give Love A Break, was greatly appreciated by the public as well, breaking the platinum mark with pre-orders alone. Around December, Yung released a Cantonese cover of Chihuahua (a song previously released in English by DJ BoBo) as part of a massive Coca-Cola advertising campaign in Hong Kong. At the year-end music awards, Yung won more than 20 awards and received the highest honour award again, The Media Award, which is given to the singer who accumulated the most awards from the four music award ceremonies in Hong Kong.

In 2005, Yung released her third compilation album, Love Joey 3, as well as a new Cantonese studio album, Bi-Heart. Her fourth major concert, "Reflection of Joey's Live", spanned eight days in October and November. "好事多為", the concert theme song, was sent to South Korea for mixing and re-arranging, resulting in the "好事多為 Reflection Mix". Sponsored by Sony Ericsson, EEG found the top production crew to produce the music videos for the theme songs. After the concert, Yung suffered from sore throat due to a strain in her vocal cord. Several days after, she had to work without chatting with other people in an attempt to help her vocal cord relax. Despite her heavy workload she was able to spend several days receiving acupuncture treatment in Nanjing to have her voice restored. In addition, under the recommendation of one of her producers, Yung started to take singing lessons under Christine Samson, who is a well-known voice coach for corrective singing techniques to many Cantopop singers.

By this time her albums sales had surpassed five million worldwide, an impressive feat as the average Cantopop album only sell around 100,000 copies. It was also estimated that her income from endorsements alone in 2004 was about HK$10 million. In 2005, she purchased two connecting flats, named "The Legend", at Jardine's Lookout, Hong Kong for HK$40 million. This investment came to no surprise though, considering the fact that she earned HK$60 million in the previous year.

Following the success of the eight-night "Reflection's of Joey's Live Concert", her concert CD/VCD/DVD was certified triple platinum (120,000 copies), quite a rare accomplishment in today's Cantopop industry.

On 27 February 2006, Yung released her tenth Cantonese studio album "Ten Most Wanted". More time was put into the production of this album than any of her previous albums. Yung said she wanted to experiment with new musical styles and work with different musicians. Hence, she worked with Mavis Fan, who wrote two songs on the album, Get Fit with Jane Fonda and Torn Tongue (lyrics of both songs written by Yiu Fai Chow).

2007–2009

At the end of December 2006, Yung released her Cantonese album Close Up. Songs include "Joyful Release" (her first collaboration with Hanjin), her biggest hit song in the previous year, "Unexpected Splendid Meeting", and her third plug, "One Love One Lesson". The album received good response from the public, and the first version went out of stock at many online CD stores like Yesasia. It was also reportedly sold out at many stores all over Hong Kong. She released the second version on 26 January, which included a bonus DVD with the music videos for "Unexpected Splendid Meeting" and "Joyful Release".

At the end of January 2007, Neway helped organise a musical for Yung, entitled, "Safari". Other singers who performed at the musical include Anthony Wong, at17, Hins Cheung, Yumiko Cheng, Vincent Wong, and Sun Boy'z.

On 7 July 2007, Yung performed at the Chinese leg of Live Earth in Shanghai.

Yung was selected to be Hong Kong's ambassador of 30 Hour Famine, organised by World Vision. She visited Kenya in March 2007, and shared many of her thoughts about this trip on her blog and on radio interviews.

Yung released her 5th Mandarin album, titled Little, on 5 July. The title track was produced by Jay Chou. The album has received tremendous success, being the best selling Mandarin album Yung has ever released.

Yung held her fifth concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum in early 2008. The concert was titled "StarLight", and the theme of the concert was "light". Yung performed a number of dance numbers as well as her famous ballads. The Power Medley, a 20-minute intense dance medley of her fast songs, was well received. The concert spanned over 10 days, proving her popularity as Hong Kong's most popular female singer. The concert was highly praised, and thus led to a Part II of her concert, which spanned over four nights, making "Starlight 2008" a 14-day concert. In mid February, Yung travelled to New York City to attend dance lessons, in hope of further improving her dancing skills. Yung also sang several official songs for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Her world tour began shortly afterwards, with shows in Malaysia, Canada, the United States, Mainland China, Singapore, and Macau.

The year 2009 marks the 10th anniversary of Yung's singing career. To celebrate the occasion, Yung and EEG released two albums, a documentary, as well as a mini concert. This includes a Cantonese album and a Mandarin album, titled A Time For Us and Very Busy respectively. Her 10th year anniversary mini-concert "Perfect Ten Live" was held on 4 October and tickets for this concert were sold out within seven minutes. Unlike her past concerts that spanned for days or even weeks, Yung performed only two shows in one day. "Perfect Ten Live" was more an intimate and exclusive concert, and was held at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre's Grand Theatre, where Yung won a championship in her first major singing contest in 1995. The "Perfect Ten Live Boxset" was released in December, being divided into two versions, the normal and the delux version. The normal version included two DVDs for the concert, the Perfect 10 Documentary and a photo album consisting of 20 or so pages; while in the delux version, two more CDs of the "Perfect Ten Live" would also be found and the photo album in this version would also include more photos.

In late 2009, Yung performed in her 5th concert, "Music Is Live", with Eason Chan and received commendations from different medias. Yung won the Media Award for the 3rd time that year, having previously won the award in 2003 and 2004 (i.e. Yung won the most number of awards in the four major music awards shows in 2009).

2010–2012

On 29 January, the 10th Anniversary EP known as Joey Ten was released together with the Joey Ten Boxset. This EP consists of 10 different covers (9 for Version 1 and 1 for Version 2) and includes five songs. The Joey Ten Boxset includes a photo album, stickers, a thank you card from Yung, a Chofy bookmark, a comic book, a Chofy USB, a DVD and the new EP. The first and second plugs from the EP received very great results in the four major media, one getting a No.1 from all four of them while the other gets No.1 from three of them. The third plug, named Always seeing an Angel(一直看見天使), was a song labelling Yung's character.

In March, Yung wrapped up her StarLight tour with two final shows in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. In August released her new EP 空港 and in November she delivered her Number6 concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum, which was her sixth major solo concert (and seventh overall) held at the Coliseum. The concert received great reviews by critics and fans alike, calling it a worthy successor to her successful StarLight tour.

For the first couple of months in 2011, Yung travelled the world and went on her first major break since 2002. She had earlier stated that in 2011 she would focus her time on the Mandarin market, recording a new Mandarin album and doing promotions in Taiwan and Mainland China.

Amsterdam-based European Chinese concert organizers Orientouch had confirmed that she would be performing a show in London, England on 26 April 2011 at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall, making it her first concert in Europe. This would make Yung the first female Chinese singer to perform at the Royal Albert Hall, and the third Chinese singer overall after Eason in 2010 and her mentor Roman Tam in 1979.

On 23 September 2011, Yung released her 29th album Joey & Joey. Plugs of album received outstanding results in the four major media, 13:00(13點) getting No.1 from three of them while Forest of Flowers(花千樹) and Wallpaper(牆紙) get No.1 from all four of them. It was also the highest-selling local album of the year 2011, thus being regarded as one of Yung's best production.

Yung starred in Diva, a big budget film produced by Chapman To. The story revolved around a successful pop diva, which To cited was the reason why he chose Yung. In an interview, he stated "a movie about a diva obviously requires a diva to play the main role." He did not agree with the general consensus that Yung was a bad actress, and hoped that the film could show her true acting potential.

In 2012, Yung continued her Concert Number 6 tour in Macau (7 Jan), Reno (31 Mar), Atlantic City (8 Apr) and Toronto (10 Apr).

In July, Yung released her 7th Mandarin album, titled Moment with 11 new songs. Yung did plenty of promotions for this album. The three plugs, Right Time (正好), Smoke and Mirrors (霧裏看花) and Greater Vigor (加大力度) had received great results from the major media.

Yung also sang Serial Drama (連續劇) as the theme song for a TVB drama called The Hippocratic Crush. Although it didn't receive any support from the major media, its views had reached more than 4 million on YouTube.

In this year, Yung received a total of 14 awards in the four major music shows, thus becoming the winner again.

2013 – present

In May, Yung's released her first plug of the year, View in a New Light (另眼相看). The song was talking about a girl could do anything and change herself to make a boy love her. In another side, it's a song Joey dedicated to all the haters in her career. Even though they hated her, she was and she would do her best in making good music. Eventually one day, they would view her in a new light and start to love her.

On 29 June 2013, Yung held her last Concert Number 6 world tour concert in Resorts Word Sentosa, Singapore.

Yung also announced that she would hold another concert in the Hong Kong Coliseum in December.

Discography

• Joey EP (1999)
• Don't Miss (2000)
• Who Will Love Me (2000)
• All Summer Holiday (2001)
• Solemn on Stage (2001)
• Something About You (2002)
• My Pride (2003)
• Show Up! (2003)
• Nin9 2 5ive (2004)
• Give Love a Break (2004)
• Bi-Heart (2005)
• Ten Most Wanted (2006)
• Close Up (2006)
• Glow (2007)
• In Motion (2008)
• A Time for Us (2009)
• Joey Ten (2010)
• Airport (2010)
• Joey & Joey (2011)
• Little Day (2013)

Film and television credits

Solo Concerts

Joey Yung Live 2000 ~H2O+容祖兒美麗在望慈善演唱會

Joey Yung Live in Concert 2001 ~H2O + 容祖兒隆重登場演唱會2001

Date	City	Country	Venue	Notes
25 October 2001	Hong Kong	Hong Kong	Hong Kong Coliseum	1st solo ticket sales concert & 1st time usage of a 4-sided stage
26 October 2001
27 October 2001

Neway Joey Yung Live Show Up 容祖兒演唱會2003

Sony Ericsson Reflection Of Joey's Live 容祖兒演唱會2005

Date	City	Country	Venue
26 October 2005	Hong Kong	Hong Kong	Hong Kong Coliseum
27 October 2005
28 October 2005
29 October 2005
30 October 2005
31 October 2005
1 November 2005
2 November 2005
14 November 2006	Toronto	Canada	Casino Rama
23 November 2006	Atlantic City	United States	Mark G. Etress Arena
24 November 2006
25 November 2006	Las Vegas		Mirage Events Center
27 April 2007	Genting Highlands	Malaysia	Arena of Stars
28 April 2007

JOHNNIE WALKER KEEP WALKING StarLight Joey Yung Live StarLight 容祖兒演唱會08

Joey Yung Perfect 10 Live 2009 容祖兒Perfect 10 黃金十年演唱會

Date	City	Country	Venue
4 October 2009	Hong Kong	Hong Kong	Hong Kong Cultural Centre
4 October 2009

NOKIA Joey Yung Concert Number 6 2010 諾基亞Nokia容祖兒演唱會第六回 2010

Date	City	Country	Venue	Notes
19 November 2010	Hong Kong	Hong Kong	Hong Kong Coliseum
20 November 2010
21 November 2010
22 November 2010
23 November 2010
24 November 2010
25 November 2010
26 November 2010
27 November 2010
28 November 2010
3 December 2010
4 December 2010
26 April 2011	London	United Kingdom	Royal Albert Hall
13 August 2011	Guangzhou	China	Tianhe Stadium
7 January 2012	Macau	Macau	CotaiArena
31 March 2012	Reno, Nevada	United States	Peppermill Reno - Tuscany Events Center	Due to the snow/traffic, Joey wanted to wait for all the audience to arrive, so the concert started a half an hour later prior to the scheduled time
7 April 2012	Atlantic City	Mark G. Etress Arena
8 April 2012
10 April 2012	Toronto	Canada	Casino Rama
20 October 2012	Genting Highlands	Malaysia	Arena of Stars
29 June 2013	Singapore	Singapore	Compass Ballroom@ Resorts World Sentosa

Ageas Joey Yung in Concert 1314 富通保險1314容祖兒演唱會

Date	City	Country	Venue	Notes
21 December 2013	Hong Kong, China	Hong Kong	Hong Kong Coliseum
22 December 2013
23 December 2013
24 December 2013
25 December 2013
26 December 2013
27 December 2013
28 December 2013
31 December 2013
1 January 2014
2 January 2014
3 January 2014
4 January 2014
5 January 2014
6 January 2014
20 December 2014	Uncasville, Connecticut	United States	Mohegan Sun Arena	1st stop of 1314 Tour
27 December 2014	Las Vegas, Nevada	United States	MGM Grand Garden Arena
23-24 January 2015	Macau, China	Macau	CotaiArena
1 August 2015	Guangzhou, China	China	Guangzhou Gymnasium
3 October 2015	Genting Highlands	Malaysia	Arena of Stars
17 October 2015	Foshan, China	China	Foshan Lingnan Mingzhu Gymnasium

Other concerts

Awards

Trivia

Yung is a pescetarian.^[5]

See also

• Cantopop
• Roman Tam

References

External links

• Official website
• English Forum & Fansite
• Official FanClub Website
• Joey Yung at the Internet Movie Database