22 January 2003
HOMEGROWN R&B newcomer Lu Rui En wants to set the record straight.
If her slurry singing sounds suspiciously like that of labelmate Jay Chou, it’s not a case of her being a copycat.
‘It sounds this way because I’m more accustomed to speaking in English,’ Lu, a 21-year-old business school undergraduate at NTU, said in Mandarin during a press conference and mini-showcase at Embassy club yesterday.
‘My Mandarin was unbelievably lan before I was discovered,’ says the former Raffles Junior College student, using the Mandarin colloquialism for ‘atrocious’.
Talent-spotted by Hype Records in 2001 after appearing in a SingTel TV commercial, she went on to do a cameo appearance in Channel 8 drama serial No Problem, last year.
But it was all because of Chou’s concert here in February last year that Lu got her big break.
Mr R.J. Yang, a Taiwanese director from the record label Alpha, was in Hype’s office when he chanced upon her demo tape. He heard it and was impressed.
A month later, she was signed up.
Soon, she was appearing alongside Chou for a mobile phone ad in Taiwan and, more recently, as a love interest in his music video for Secret Code.
He also penned the track White Feather for her debut CD, Rui En Vol.01 Album, which was released last month.
It has sold 50,000 copies in Taiwan and 3,000 here so far.
She performed White Feather during Chou’s sold-out shows as a guest earlier this month at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
Though she thanks Chou for opening doors for her, she said that being associated with the Taiwanese R&B superstar puts her under ‘tremendous pressure’.
Some of Chou’s fanatical fans in Taiwan had told her to ‘lay off’ their idol.
More at ease now, she will be playing an uncouth and boyish radio DJ-love counsellor in the upcoming Channel 5 urban romance drama, Chemistry.
Of her acting role, a source close to her said yesterday: ‘The part fits her because Lu’s like that – a bit of a tomboy with no pretence. What you see is what you get.’
Rui ∑n vol. 01 Album is out in the stores.
Source: The Straits Times
Categorised in Rui ∑n vol. 01, The Straits Times.
