serves up a hot cup of R&B-infused pop in Chinese and English, but her career has not always been as smooth as her rhythms. Born in Hong Kong 25 years ago 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 a concert in Singapore last week, sounding like a typical American teenager. "I couldn't speak a word of Mandarin six years ago."
Dressed in a shimmering 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 Romanized before she could even pronounce the words.
Now, 14 Mandarin albums later, she manages to write simple songs in the complex, four-tone language. Along with an English release this year, Lee has sold more than 7 million albums.
She starts work on her second English album at the end of next year, incorporating tracks by Asian songwriters, and also plans her first Mandarin/Cantonese album for mid-2001.
Lee's funky style and long bottle-blonde tresses have earned her a title she has found difficult to shake. "When I started ... nobody sang like that in Chinese and the only person they could relate to was Mariah Carey doing all this R&B," she said.
"Nowadays, everybody sings like that and people still are stuck on ... Coco Lee -- the Mariah Carey of Asia," she added.
But the U.S. music industry was less kind in accepting her when she launched her first English album, "Just No Other Way." Lee, accustomed to San Francisco's racial melting pot and ease with diversity, was surprised by the reaction.
"This is the year 2000. You have people all over the world going into this music scene. For Asian people this shouldn't be a problem," she said, adding: "I did encounter some discrimination while I was releasing this album in the States. It was quite difficult."
But Lee, a self-proclaimed optimist, quickly brushes aside the specter of racism by saying she was cheered by the support her English album got from Asian fans in the United States.
The youngest of three sisters, Lee was in Singapore as part of an Asian tour that took in three cities in China and moves to Malaysia before the new year.
Live performances are relatively new to the singer, who will take an even bigger leap with a world tour starting in February. She gave up her place as a premedical student at the University of California at Irvine for her showbiz career.
But, inspired by her physician mother, she hopes to follow in her footsteps eventually. "I believe that being a doctor the older you are the better you are," Lee said. "I could be 50 and on the first day of my job people will think she must be really good. She looks like she's got experience."
Reuters/Variety
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