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BIOGRAPHY

CoCo Lee
	BIOGRAPHY | GALLERY | GOSSIP | BLOG

CoCo Lee is the stage name of Ferren Lee-Kelly, born January 17, 1975, in Hong Kong with ancestry from Harbin, China, is a Chinese pop singer, Urban contemporary and Dance-pop star, popular in the 1990s, who has also recorded albums in English, contributed to several movies and represented internationally-known products to the Asian market.

Lee's father died when she was young, and Lee moved at age 10 with her mother, step-father and sisters to California. She went through school while experimenting with her singing voice, and followed her older sisters in entering several local singing contests.CoCo Lee attended Raoul Wallenberg Traditional High School in San Francisco. Coco later had a brief enrollment at the University of California at Irvine. Lee is close to her mother, who has at times managed her career.

After Lee's high school graduation in 1993, she took a holiday in Hong Kong, probably seeing her two sisters' (Carol Lee and Nancy Lee) participation of Miss Hong Kong Pageant, and while there she came runner-up in the 12th Annual New Talent Singing Awards. The following day, she was approached by local record label Fancy Pie Records.

Lee was represented by Fancy Pie Records from 1994 to 1995, recording four albums with them. She later signed with another record company in 1996 by Sony Music, who has continued to represent her ever since.

Lee sang the 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. Critics commented that she hit the high C6s right on, and delivered solid vocals.

In 2002, Lee 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 addition to her status in the Mandarin music market, Lee's English-language performance has also received recognition. Her love song Before I Fall In Love was included in the soundtrack of the movie Runaway Bride.

Lee was invited by Andrew Lloyd Webber to perform Phantom of the Opera in China.

Also, Walt Disney Pictures hired her to sing the title song and be the voice of the heroine Fa Mulan in the Mandarin Chinese version of Mulan. Lee recorded the song "Reflections", which she also sang at the 2005 opening of the Hong Kong Disneyland A "Reflections" Chinese music video was also filmed. While the Lea Salonga version of the English version is more widely known, CoCo did also sing the English version, including one which she sang together with Lea.

Lee has been getting into acting part-time. She co-starred in the Chinese 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. While in character within the movie, she sings one of her own songs, "Di-Da-Di", which was a cover of Maria Montell's "And So The Story Goes."

In the world of fashion and commerce, Lee 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 early 2005, Lee visited countries all over Asia to promote her latest album "Exposed".During her visit in the Philippines,she guested in SOP and performed the songs Do you want my love and I will survive with Asia's Songbird,Regine Velasquez.It was remembered that CoCo Lee introduced Velasquez as the "Diva of all Divas" during the MTV Asia Awards back in 2003. She together with pop singer Shaggy hosted the show while Velasquez won the trophy for the second time in a row as the Philippine's favorite artist.

In June 2005 Lee's engagement to millionaire Canadian businessman Bruce Rockowitz was made public, apparently having taken place some months earlier. Despite Rockowitz being 18 years her senior, Lee's mother approved the marriage.

Before her relationship with Bruce Rockowitz, Lee has been rumored with the Taiwanese singer Wang Leehom.

As of 2007, Lee has yet to break the U.S. market with a big smash hit single. Although both her English albums have sold modestly, regular airplay and recurrent airplay by radio programmers is still lacking. This is the main reason she has not been as successful with her English language output. Her moderate hit single, "Do You Want My Love", remains popular at discotheques and various internet radio stations. Her most recent English single aimed at the North American market is titled "No Doubt," the lead single from the album "Exposed." Once again because of lax programming on radio station playlists, this single was ignored by radio. The singles have become chart and video television hits in Hong Kong and Taiwan among other places. The second single from "Exposed" is the song "So Good" whose music video is increasingly run on Hong Kong and Taiwanese MTV. 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. The second single from the album was "The Ninth Night", followed by the third single "Love You At 85°C" and the final single, "Dangerous Lover".

Lee is currently working on a new album, which she plans to release in the autumn 2007. Coco Lee will return to the San Francisco bay area for a live concert at the Shoreline Amphitheatre on September 22, 2007 with special guest Alex To. It will be her first live performance in her hometown in several years.