In 1999, I was attending The Art Institute of Philadelphia in Center City, when I was liberally exposed to people of all walks of life. I had an interest in ALL kinds of cultures, music, arts, and movies from EVERYWHERE outside of the USA. In 1 of my Life Drawing classes, I met a guy from Taiwan, and he needed help with his Art Homework, so I went to visit him at his swank JFK apartment which he shared with other rich kids from Taiwan attending the other local Universities & colleges in the area, usually it was Drexel U, or U Penn.
While I was hanging out with him, he played a lot of Dance & House Music. I had only a limited amount of knowledge of Chinese Pop Music back then, which was mostly from Hong Kong which was USUALLY in Cantonese (the Southern dialect) however it wasn't uncommon to have Hong Kong Music in Mandarin (The Standard National Dialect in the Peoples Republic of China). My friend, Allen Yang, was from Taiwan, so he spoke Taiwanese Mandarin Chinese (which sounds funny, since to me Taiwan people sound like foreigners...ironic, right?). [I lived in Mainland PR China, so it makes sense if u understand that part, but I'm not even Chinese, I'm American.]
Whilest I was hanging out with Allen, and we're listening to music, I asked him if he had any Chinese Pop Music, since I didn't know what was the newest ANYTHING from way over there, and was curious to know ANYTHING about it. [1999] and I only had music by Kelly Chen, or "various artists" CDs I'd gotten in Chinatown (Philly). So, he put on some music video samplers, and then he put on Coco Lee.
At the time I'd never heard of her....
BUT OH BOY! WAS I ABOUT TO!
I liked her voice, and he was apparently a fan of Coco Lee, when this song came on "Di Da Di", and he remembered I loved Techno, Dance, and House Music A LOT. "Club Music". So, he said: Oh, there's an ENGLISH VERSION!
Then, he grabbed a tape, and played it! He'd recorded it from the radio somewhere.
Well, not long after THAT, I'd actually gotten the Coco Lee album "Di Da Di" at Tower Records, as well as Amber's Single CD "Sexual Li Da Di".
Also, not long after that, I used to hang around South Street, and visited many Comic Book shops, and other places that sold magazines, and unique Anime related stuff all over the city, not just South Street & Chinatown. I had some magazines that talked about all the usually art stuff I liked, such as cartoons, animation, Sci-Fi, comics, anime, Kung Fu movies, etc. Back THEN that stuff was considered "guy stuff" but I AM FEMALE. But, go to a Comic Con TODAY n LOTS OF GIRLS THERE!
IN 1 of the magazines were several pages of interviews with Coco Lee, and she not just fluent in English, she's American, altho she was born in Hong Kong. There was this whole long story of how she became a Pop Singer.
Anyways, I didn't understand why Coco Lee never had her own English version... I also have her English Albums. Apparently, also Coco Lee is rather popular!
Since Allen, introduced me to Coco Lee, it was like within 2 months many of my classmates knew of her, then it was like a thing. And many people knew of here, not Just Chinese.
Here's Coco Lee's Version (1998):
Here's Amber's House Music Version (1999):
Well, I didn't know this until JUST RECENTLY! The Coco Lee SONG "Di Da Di' was actually a remake of Maria Montell's Song "Di Da Di - And So The Story Goes"
And HERE"S The Maria Montell Versions (1997):
What's interesting to note is that on Coco Lee's Single, it credits Maria Montell as the Song writer.
Is it me, or were BOTH Coco ^ Maria wearing GOLDEN LIPSTICK???
