FOR CHINESE-AMERICANS it was a moment to savour. Singer CoCo Lee stepped into the Houston Rockets Arena in front of a 16,000-strong audience and belted out The Star-Spangled Banner, the highest-profile performance of the United States national anthem by an Asian-American.
'As soon as I started singing everyone began clapping,' recalls Hong Kong-born, San Francisco-raised Lee of her performance on November 2 last year. 'Then when I hit the highest notes everyone stood up and went nuts. I almost cried. It was a very touching moment, an especially proud moment for an American-born Chinese because I'm sure they love America but have never really been represented.'
The diminutive diva was there to mark the home debut of Chinese basketball giant Yao Ming for the Houston Rockets. China's 'Little and Large' made an odd coupling, but both were united by their ambition - to be the first ethnic Chinese to succeed in the US in their respective fields. But while Yao became an instant star, Lee's task is proving much harder, despite her head start.
Eighteen months earlier, she performed A Love Before Time, the theme to the hit movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, at the Oscars ceremony. Wearing a Versace-designed red cheongsam, her performance was beamed to a worldwide television audience of one billion and she was touted as the next Jennifer Lopez or Mariah Carey. Never mind that her first English-language album, Just No Other Way, flopped the previous year; her powerful voice, sexy image and radiation of that intangible star quality had pundits predicting the US would fall at her feet. Lee has sold more than eight million albums in Asia, having recorded more than a dozen in Putonghua and Cantonese.
Yet, the Houston show aside, Lee remains a virtual nonentity in the US. So now she is preparing for a second attempt at cracking America; her second English album is due out this summer. Rick Wake, the Grammy Award-winning producer who has worked with Lopez, Carey and Celine Dion, is at the helm and Lee believes it will be her breakthrough album. 'The new album is great,' gushes the 27-year-old, during an interview in Singapore last month where she co-presented the MTV Asia Awards 2003 with Jamaican superstar Shaggy. 'Rick told me, 'CoCo, I'm going to do this whole album and we're gonna make you a star.' It's a great, great compliment from him.
'The album's almost done, five more songs,' squeals Lee, who is wearing a mix of Western street chic and Asian glamour - a short black leather jacket, bra top and khaki combat trousers with huge looped ear-rings and a glitzy diamond bracelet. The interview is supposed to be an intimate chat but snowballs into a mini-press conference and she revels in the attention, smiling and batting her long eyelashes to seduce the already swooning press.
'The best thing about the album is I have written so much, more than half, which is a huge development from my last English album,' says Lee, flicking her long red-tinted curly hair. 'I've learned so much [from Wake] as a songwriter and to have my own songs released . . . woo-hoo, it's exciting and I just hope people love it.'
