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He's been dubbed the "King of Chinese Pop", and is one of the most popular pop stars in Asia, selling over 50 million albums, and amassing even more fans on social media. Since his debut in 1995, American-born Chinese singer-songwriter Wang Leehom has released 16 solo albums, and is a four-time winner and 19-time nominee for Taiwan’s Golden Melody awards – the "Grammy's" of Chinese music. He re-invented the landscape of Chinese music with his own diverse style, one that blends Hip Hop with Peking Opera, and electric guitars with violins.
The multi-instrumentalist, who also works as a producer, actor, director and screenwriter, was recently in town to announce his new world tour, which will kick off with two concerts in Beijing on April 13 and 14. He will perform 100 concerts over the next three years. After his press conference, he sat down with CGTN to talk about his tour, being a dad, making movies, and how pop culture can bridge the East and the West.
Wang Leehom in the interview.
The megastar’s latest tour is called "Descendants of the Dragon, 2060". He explains that "Descendants of the Dragon" is actually the name of a popular 1980’s Chinese song by his uncle Li Jianfu. Wang made a remix of this song with a rap bridge near the end that briefly chronicles his parents' experience as new immigrants to New York. Wang Leehom's 2012 "Open Fire" concert was the first-ever solo pop concert at the 90,000-seat Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing－and it was a sell out. He says that performing there will always be a milestone. The artist was a torchbearer during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and even performed at the closing ceremony.
Wang Leehom in the press conference.
The singer says his latest concert will be "both futuristic and nostalgic", which goes in line with his latest album, 2017's "A.I. Love". It features a song of the same name, and in the music video, his team programmed a real A.I. robot named Sophia to play herself.
2017 was a big year for hip hop and rap in China, and Wang Leehom is no stranger to this genre. For his chart-topping 2005 album, "Heroes of the Earth", the artist fused hip hop with traditional Chinese elements such as Peking and Kunqu operas.
He says that hip hop is here to stay in China, because like classical music, rock, jazz, and the blues, it's a music genre that will always be around.
For his earlier album "Shangri-La", Wang Leehom incorporated many different folk music elements from southwest China, Taiwan, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia, as well as exotic cultural flavors, such as India and Turkey, and traveled to remote villages to record the diverse sounds.
Wang Leehom during the interview.
In 2013, Wang Leehom became the first Chinese singer to ever speak at Oxford University, and in his speech he said: "The relationship between East and West needs to be, and can be, fixed via pop culture."
Wang Leehom says the biggest challenge in bringing Chinese Culture and music to English speaking audiences lies with the medium, but that is now changing with co-productions between China and the United States, and artists such as himself collaborating with other Western artists such as Usher and Swedish DJ Avicii.
A day before announcing his tour, Wang was also in Beijing promoting his latest movie "Forever Young", which stars Chinese actors Huang Xiaoming and Zhang Ziyi. The star says that acting is like music, but without the lyrical melodies, and that it comes "naturally" for him.
The singer previously performed in Broadway musicals and that's where he learned to sing, act and dance. He also sang opera in high school, and was kind enough to give us a short demo of his operatic skills.
(CGTN)
