Coco Lee is coming home

Singer bringing pop success to States

Lee is setting her sights on the United States after conquering music markets in Asia

From Mark Scheerer
CNN Entertainment News Correspondent

(CNN) -- Her R&B sounds infused with Western pop have taken Asia by storm. Now, with 6 million albums sold there, 23-year-old Coco Lee is ready to take her success and run -- to the United States.

"It will be the biggest challenge of my life, because I've been doing so well in Asia," says Lee. "But I feel that it's coming back home. This is my home, this is the place that I grew up in, and I just wanted to come back home to do my thing and let my friends know, let my people know, that Coco can sing."

	ALBUM CLIPS
"Before I Fall In Love" [63k MPEG-3] or [85k WAV] (Courtesy 550 Music)

Lee was born in Hong Kong, but raised in San Francisco. After high school, she went back to the city of her birth for a vacation, where she entered a singing contest. Lee hoped to do nothing more than win pay for banging up her mother's car in an accident. She won first prize in the contest, and that set the wheels turning on her pop career.

Lee has since released 12 albums -- in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English.

Her latest release is "Just No Other Way" (SNYC), featuring the pop-chart-friendly single "Do You Want My Love." She previewed her assault on the U.S. market with "Before I Fall In Love," a single on the soundtrack of the 1999 Julia Roberts-Richard Gere film "Runaway Bride."

Now she's answering questions from journalists who want to know what changes have come to Hong Kong since it reverted from British control to Chinese rule.

"Honestly, there is not much change," she says. "The only problem we do have is with pirated CDs. That is the biggest problem, so I do advise people to please to get the original. That is the best out there."

And Lee is bringing her best to the United States.

CNN.com's ASIANOW

Coco Lee Web ring

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