CoCo Lee

Categories: 1976 births | Cantopop | Hong Kong singers

Image:CoCo Lee - Just No Other Way album cover.jpg

Album cover for CoCo Lee's Just No Other Way

Ferren Lee (李美林 Pinyin: Lǐ Měilín) (born January 17, 1976), better known by stage name CoCo Lee (李玟 Lǐ Wén), is a C-pop star. She was born in Hong Kong with ancestry from Harbin, China. CoCo moved with her mother and sister to California at age 10 and went through school while experimenting with her singing voice and following her older sisters in entering several local singing contests. After her high school graduation in 1993 she took a holiday in Hong Kong, and while there she came runner-up in a major singing talent quest. The following day she was approached by local record label Fancy Pie Records, recording four studio albums with them in 1994-95 before being picked up in 1996 by Sony who have continued to represent her since that time.

CoCo sang the theme song "A Love Before Time" for the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She received worldwide exposure when she performed the song live at the 2001 Academy Awards ceremony.

In addition to her mega-star status in the Mandarin and Cantopop music market, her English performance also received recognition. Her song "Before I Fall In Love" was included in the soundtrack of the movie Runaway Bride. She was invited by Andrew Lloyd Webber to perform Phantom of the Opera in China. Disney hired her to sing the title song and be the voice of the heroine "Fa Mulan" in the Mandarin Chinese version of Mulan. She recorded the song "Reflections", which she also sang at the 2005 opening of the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort. CoCo co-starred in the movie comedy "Master of Everything" (aka "Bamboo Shoot") with John Lone, which won the Best Foreign Film award at the 2005 Beverly Hills Film Festival. In character in this movie she sang one of her own hit songs, "Di-Da-Di", which was a cover of Maria Montell's "And So The Story Goes".