Chinese teenage singer Leah Dou begins her first UK arena tour

Chinese artist Leah Dou. [Photo/Official Weibo of China Daily]

With her celebrity status in China confirmed at birth, Dou quickly built a strong following after she released her debut album Stone Café via Universal Music Japan in April.

She's followed by 1.3 million fans on Weibo and has amassed millions of plays across online video channels, though she remains largely unknown in the UK. Catching shine from chart topping, Brit-award-winning Bastille may go some way to change that, though Dou says conquering the West is not what motivates her.

"I don't want to place big expectations on it, I'm not saying I'm going to break into the Western market - I feel like that then drifts away from why I make music," she says. "I want my music to take me places, I want to share my music with more people. If I'm really focused on the idea of breaking into a market then there is a big chance I'm going to be disappointed, because you never know with these things - which song is going to do the job, what's going to click. A big part of it is luck."

That said, Dou does have a head-start in terms of building a British following - the infectious, indie-pop tracks on Stone Café are all sung in English. Dou began song writing while studying music at the renowned Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, US. Needing no further convincing she wanted to pursue a career in music, Dou dropped out after a year to begin recording.

"As a kid at school I saw all my peers worrying about what they wanted to do with their lives," she says. "It never occurred to me to question that - I was always going to be a musician."

Dou is currently working on her second album which she hopes to complete by next February, under the guidance of her mother's management and with her uncle on keyboards. At just 19 and having barely started out, Dou is keen to play down any expectations. But with innate talent and relatable lyrics, she may yet be the first from her Chinese musical dynasty to make it big on Western shores.

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