CoCo Lee Becomes First Non-Mainland Chinese Singer to Win 'I Am a Singer'

Chinese pop icon CoCo Lee was crowned the winner of the fourth season of I Am A Singer, a hugely popular singing competition on the mainland hosted by Hunan TV.

Lee won the night singing classics including “A Love Before Time”, the theme song from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that she sang on the Oscars stage in 2001. As an extra special touch, Lee donned the same red dress she wore to the Academy Awards.  

Lee’s performances throughout the three-month competition had constantly brought the house down, dueting during the finale with American R&B singer Ne-Yo on Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song”, and belting out Lady Gaga classic “Bad Romance”.  During the show, Lee was extremely hands-on with every performance.  She acted as her own music director, came up with arrangement ideas, styling, hair, make-up, even outfits for the back-up dancers, as she wanted to ensure each performance represented who she is as a music artist.   

Lee is the first singer from outside China to win the competition. In previous editions, Yu Quan, Han Lei and Han Hong won the top prize, amidst the buzz surrounding Taiwanese and Hong Kong favourites like Aska Yang and GEM.

Following Lee, Jeff Chang from Taiwan and Hwang Chi-yeul from South Korea won 1st runner-up and 2nd runner-up respectively.