Leon Lai Ming SBS BBS MH (; born 11 December 1966), is a Hong Kong actor, film director, businessman, and Cantopop singer. He is one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" of Hong Kong pop music. He uses his Chinese name "Li Ming" or "Lai Ming", which literally means "dawn".
Early life
Lai was born in Beijing, China. His parents initially considered Lai Chit () as his name, but eventually opted for Lai Ming instead. He is of Hakka ancestry. His family was originally from Meixian. He migrated with his parents to Hong Kong at the age of four. At the age of 15, he attended Lewisham College in the United Kingdom, but returned to Hong Kong at 18 in 1984.
Career
Early years
Lai initially worked as a salesperson for a mobile phone company. After being awarded second-runner-up in the 1986 New Talent Singing Awards, Lai received vocal coaching from Dai Si Zong (). In the same year he signed with Capital Artists. He did not release any albums for four years. As a result, his teacher, Dai, arranged to have him signed a contract with Polygram, later known as Universal Music.
Music
In Polygram, he released his first album "Leon" and subsequent album "Meet in the Rain". His debut album went gold.
In the early stages of his career, he mainly sang Cantopop and Mandarin, but due to the influence of producer Mark Lui, he expanded his repertoire to include popular electronic songs with compelling music videos. In 1990 he won his first 1990 Jade Solid Gold Top 10 Awards and 1990 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards. He followed up to win the "Most Popular Male Singer" award in 1993 and 1995 for TVB Jade Solid Gold. In 1996, he collaborated with composer-producer Steve Barakatt on his album "Feel". Two years later in 1998, he became the first Hong Kong singer to reach the Top 10 K-pop chart with the song "After Loving You."
In 2002 he was selected to sing "Charged Up", the 2002 FIFA World Cup theme song for the Greater China region. In 2004, he became the first Hong Kong singer to represent the territory at the first Asia Song Festival held in South Korea.
Lai was selected to be the ambassador of the 6th Winter Asian Games to be held Changchun in 2007. He sang the Games' theme song and took part in the torch relay. He then joined Michael Wong and Janice Vidal and held a three-day "Magic Live" charity concert at Star Hall, Hong Kong from November 9th to 11th, 2008.
Lai holds his concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum, titled "Leon Lai Talk & Sing 2021 Concert", from Jul 10, 2021, for 9 shows.
Duets
Apart from being a solo artist, Lai has collaborated with other artists. Some of his better known collaborations are "Love Until the End" and "A Happy Family" with Vivian Chow, "Really Wish to Be Like This Forever" and "It's Still You" with Priscilla Chan, "Song of the Star" with Alan Tam, "Never Give Up" with Jacky Cheung, "Why did I let you go?" with Janice Vidal.
Company founder and singer
In 2004, Lai formed a new record production company, "A Music", East Asia Record Production Company Limited, with Peter Lam. The first album produced by the company, "Dawn" was released in September of that year. The album, "Dawn", was released with minimum promotion as Lai went to Mainland China for a movie shoot on the day of the album's release.
In 2005, Lai invited Taiwanese music producer Jonathan Lee to produce his new Mandarin album "A Story". However, by doing so he had to give up the opportunity for a lead role in a big budget Taiwan movie "Gui Si" due to conflicts in his schedules.
He returned to the Hong Kong Coliseum on 13 April 2007 to perform in his one night only Leon 4 in Love Concert, where he performed not only his own hits but also hits from the other three heavenly kings. He performed a total of 18 songs, all of which are newly arranged by Mark Lui. He subsequently released an album titled "4 in Love" on 3 May 2007, comprising 16 of the 18 songs he had performed at the concert.
In 2004, Paciwood co-invested with Esun Group to develop a music record company, East Asia Record Production Limited, with the music label Amusic.