Joey Yung Cho-yee was born in Hong Kong on 16 June 1980 and is one of Cantopop's defining female singers. She won a Big Echo karaoke contest as a teenager and signed first with Go East and then with Fitto Entertainment; when Fitto was acquired by Emperor Entertainment in 1998 she became an Emperor artist and, with Yip Pui-man and Ho Ka-lee, was billed as one of the label's 'three little flowers'. She studied under Roman Tam. On 29 September 1999 she released her self-titled debut EP 'Joey', which spent 23 weeks on the IFPI album chart and sold about 130,000 copies in Hong Kong, and she won the Jade Solid Gold Most Popular Newcomer gold award that year. Her first album, 'Who Will Love Me', followed on 1 September 2000, along with her first solo concert, a charity show, and in December 2001 she performed her 'Lung Chung Dang Cheung' concerts at the Hong Kong Coliseum. Her 2003 hit 'My Pride', released in Mandarin as 'The Girl with the Flapping Wings', became the song of the year and brought her a first Most Popular Female Singer title at the Jade Solid Gold awards and a first Ultimate Female Singer gold at the Ultimate Song Chart Awards, prizes she went on to win repeatedly. To date she has taken the Ultimate Song Chart's female singer gold eleven times, the Most Popular Female Singer title twelve times and RTHK's Most Outstanding Female Singer honour fourteen times. Her catalogue spans more than 25 Cantonese and Mandarin albums with hits such as 'Painful Love', 'Fading Heart', 'Break-up Habit' and 'Lover No. 16', and she has toured Asia, Europe and America. In August 2019 she staged an 18-night run at the Coliseum, 'Pretty Crazy', marking twenty years in the industry and her longest concert series to date.
With steady vocals and a heavy live schedule, Joey Yung has long ranked at the top of Hong Kong's female singer awards; her Coliseum runs and world tours became major revenue pillars of the Cantopop industry, and she is one of the few post-2000 Hong Kong female singers to work both the Cantonese and Mandarin markets.
Achievements
- 1999 · Released her self-titled debut EP 'Joey' to launch her career, and won the Jade Solid Gold Most Popular Newcomer gold award the same year.
- 2003 · Won her first Ultimate Female Singer gold and Most Popular Female Singer title with 'My Pride'.
- 2019 · Staged an 18-night 'Pretty Crazy' run at the Hong Kong Coliseum marking twenty years in the industry.