Canto-pop singer Denise Ho Wan-sze finally gets a chance to extend her fan base to Taiwan and the mainland with the release of her first Putonghua album, HOCC 2010. Titled Wu Ming (literally Nameless) in Chinese, it marks a new stage for Ho, a protege of the late Anita Mui Yim-fong.
Ho landed her first contract with Capital Artists after winning the New Talent Singing Contest in 1996. She spent several years touring with Mui as a background singer before releasing her debut record, First (2001). The 33-year-old has also been active when it comes to social issues, producing the album Ten Days in the Madhouse and teaming up with filmmaker Yan-yan Mak in 2008 to make a documentary, The Decameron, to raise awareness about the plight of people with mental illness.
Have you waited long to make this Putonghua album?
I've spent a long time preparing and thinking about what I want to do on this album. I decided it should be different from my Cantonese record and thought seriously about how I would do it. I tried to collaborate with some Taiwanese producers but realised that although the songs may be easily accepted by the Putonghua market, I would lose my style. So, in the end, I decided to do it with my own team.
You collaborated with several Taiwanese singer-songwriters such as Mayday frontman Ashin, Mavis Fan and Waa Wei on this album. What led to these collaborations?
They are musicians I greatly admire. I like Mayday's music very much, so I asked Ashin to write a song for the album. I got to know Mavis when I was working on Decameron. She is a great songwriter, so I thought it would be good to work with her. When I started on the album and began looking for lyricists, Carl Wong Sheung-chun introduced Waa Wei to me. She wrote the lyrics for three songs on the album. She is a really talented lyricist.