CoCo Lee

Coco Lee (p=Li? Mei?lín? ), born on January 17, 1975, also known in America as Ferren Lee-Kelly, is a Chinese pop singer, songwriter, record producer and actress from Hong Kong. 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 music charts in America and the entire album, Just No Other Way gave Coco a break in the English market. Coco speaks Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese and American English fluently.

Coco had first gained recognition when she won first runner-up in the 1993 New Talent Singing Awards with her rendition of Whitney Houston's "Run to You". A local record company noticed that Coco's voice stood out aside from being the only contestant to sing in English. The following day, Capital Artists asked her to sign a contract with their label.

Coco is the first 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.
Coco also provided the voice of Mulan in the Mandarin version of Disney's animated feature of the same name.

Coco's music has been influenced by genres ranging from pop, hip-hop, R'n'B, adult contemporary and soul. While her releases have often received mixed critical reception, she is renowned for her East-meets-West music and melismatic vocals. She has also been nicknamed the "Asian Pop Diva" by the media and due to her worldwide success, critics called Coco the "Best-selling Female Artist" of the continent.

In 2001, Asia Weekly magazine named Coco as one of the most powerful people in Asia on their Power 50 list

. for the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She received worldwide exposure when she performed the song live at the 73rd Academy Awards ceremony. Critics commented that she hit the high C6s right on, and delivered solid vocals. This song appears in English in the soundtrack album and in Mandarin in her next album named Promise released in October 2001. It contains Cantonese and Mandarin songs such as So crazy, a duet with the singer Jay Chou called Dao ma dan or ''Baby I'm sorry, which immediately became great successes. In December, she had a Christmas concert at Mandalay Bay, in Las Vegas.

In 2002, Coco released her remix album D. Is Coco (Dance is Coco). She notably sang a song against tobacco called ''From the beginning til' the end with singer Jacky Cheung.
Then, she was the featured performer at a Houston Rockets NBA game. She became the first Chinese singer to ever perform the US National Anthem at a major global sporting event.

In 2003, she performed with Shaggy at the "MTV Asia awards" in Singapore and also presented the show with him.
Coco has also been getting into acting. She co-starred in the Chinese comedy movie Master of Everything (aka Bamboo Shoot) with John Lone, which won the Best Foreign Film award in the 2005 Beverly Hills Film Festival. While in character within the movie, she sings one of her own songs, Di da di.

In the world of fashion and commerce, CoCo was an Omega Global Ambassador in 2004, and fashion house Chanel named CoCo its first "Asian-Pacific Celebrity Ambassadress". This brought Ferren's story full circle somewhat, as she got her nickname CoCo from being an admirer of the firm's products. CoCo, as the YouthAIDS ambassador had been to Bangkok, Thailand for the global AIDS conference in 2004. She attended the conference 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 theme song of ''Charlie's angels 2 called All around the world but also a duet called No doubt with Indian rapper Blaaze.
CoCo visited countries all over Asia to promote her album. During her visit in the Philippines, she guested in SOP and performed the songs "Do You Want My Love" and "I Will Survive" with Regine Velasquez. Then, Coco sang Reflection with Lea Salonga for the opening of the Hong Kong Disneyland.

In June 2005, CoCo's engagement with Canadian businessman Bruce Rockowitz was made public, apparently having taken place some months earlier.

Coco's follow up album to her C-Pop hit album Promise, titled Just Want You, features the hit single "Hip-Hop Tonight" with Vanness Wu, which follows in the same vein as No Doubt. The album Just Want You was released on September 22, 2006.

Then, Coco Lee returned to San Francisco bay area for a live concert at the Shoreline Amphitheater on September 22, 2007 with special guest Alex To. It was her first live performance in her hometown in several years.

In 2008, Coco was chosen to sing one of the Olympic songs, "Forever Friends", opposite Sun Nan.

Current career

In 2009, Coco Lee ranked No.15 in E! Entertainment's list of the world's 25 sexiest pop divas, ahead of Kylie Minogue (No.18), Jennifer Lopez (No.20) and other big names.

On Jully 17, she had a solo concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. She's the first Chinese singer to perform in this place.

Her new Chinese album East to west was released with Warner Music on August 14. The three hit singles are "Party time", "Beautiful theme song" and "Turn". It also contains the cover of Jay Sean's "Maybe" called "Love now" and "BYOB" ("Bring Your Own Bag"), a song to encourage people to bring and recycle their own shopping bags to save the environment.

Quotations

"I really idolize everything my sisters do, so I went into singing contests and won also. That's how I really got into singing."{{cite web |url=www.allmovieportal.com/c/cocolee.html

"People liked my voice so much, it was so different. I also combined the R&B feel with the pop music of Taiwan. Everyone there Taiwan used to sing really conservatively – they sing to the melody and that's it. The music music just sounded so dead. I wanted to bring the R&B flavor and other Westernized sounds to my music, because that's the type of music I grew up listening to." (about her Asian audience){{cite web |url=www.allmovieportal.com/c/cocolee.html

"When I work, I work. I don't think about anything else. I just wanna get the work done. And I'm a perfectionist."{{cite web |url=www.allmovieportal.com/c/cocolee.html

"They cannot imagine what I'll sound like. But always when I'm done singing, people are very surprised."{{cite web |url=www.allmovieportal.com/c/cocolee.html

Discography

To view a complete list of her albums, see Coco Lee albums discography.

Studio albums

Coco on the billboard of Pure Yoga in Hong Kong

Fancy Pie Records releases

June 1994: Love from Now On
December 1994: Promise Me
June 1995: Brave Enough to Love
September 1995: Woman in Love
May 1997: Dance with the wind

Sony Music releases

March 1996: CoCo Lee (or Love me longer)
November 1996: ''CoCo's Party
June 1997: Sincere
November 1997: CoCo Lee (Cantonese album)
January 1998: DiDaDi (HMV Music Chart: #1)
July 1998: Sunny Day
May 1999: Today Until Forever

550 Music release

November 1999: Just No Other Way (HMV Music Chart: #1)

Sony Music releases

August 2000: You and Me
October 2001: Promise
June 2002 : D. IS CoCo

Sony BMG releases

March 2005: Exposed (HMV Music Chart: #1)
September 2006: Just Want You (HMV Music Chart: #1)

Warner Music releases

August 2009: East To West

Best Of albums

August 1996 : Beloved Collection
January 2000 : The Best of My Love
May 2008 : 1994–2008 Best Collection

Live albums

December 1995 : You are in my heart concert
December 1998 : Million fans concert

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 (????93???)

Capital Artists and Fancy Pie releases

September 1994 : ''Red hot hits 94' Love Party (????94??Party)
November 1994 : Statement of love, duet songs (????, ????)
December 1994 : Merry Christmas (????)

Asian Chart-topping hits and singles

Not exhaustive

"Yesterday's passion"
"Di Da Di"
"Take a Chance on Love"
"Do You Want My Love" Hot Dance Music/Club Play: #49
"Before I Fall in Love"
"Wherever You Go"
"A Love Before Time" (English and Mandarin for the soundtrack of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
"Reflection"
"No Doubt" feat. Blaaze
"All Around the World"
"So Good"
"Hip-Hop Tonight"
"Brave Enough to Love"
"Another Sad Love Song" (Dance Version)
"The Ninth Night"
"Dangerous Lover"
"I Have a Dream" (2008 Single)
"Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB)" (Recycling Jingle)
"Party time"
"Turn"
"Beautiful theme song"

Videography

Coco (on the left), performing "Hip Hop Tonight"

Fancy Pie releases

1995 : Foot print (VCD)
1995 : ''You're in my heart concert (VCD)

Sony Music releases

1996 : ''Coco's workout camp (VCD)
1998 : Coco in Italy (VCD + photo book)
1998 : Di da di (VCD)
1998 : Sunny day (VCD)
1999 : Million fans concert (VCD/DVD)

550 Music releases

2000 : Just no other way, The Video Collection (VCD)

Sony Music releases

2002 : Coco so crazy (VCD)
2002 : All my Coco (DVD)
2004 : Master of everything (DVD/VCD)

Signed Music Artists

Current career

Quotations