Dynamic duo

The band Mr. Miss wins the best vocal collaboration award at Taiwan's Golden Melody Awards in June. [Photo provided to China Daily]

After years of paying the dues at cafes, Mr. Miss finally gets to celebrate success. Chen Nan reports.

Du Kai and Liu Lian are doing interviews in a Beijing coffeehouse before an upcoming party to celebrate their winning the best vocal collaboration award at the 28th Golden Melody Awards in June.

They are the first performers from the Chinese mainland to win the award, and the Beijing-based jazz and pop duo's debut album, Mr. Miss, after the name of their act, also set a record among singers from the mainland by being nominated in two other categories－best album producer and best newcomer.

"When our name was announced that was a big 'wow' moment for us," says Du, the 33-year-old male singer-songwriter of the band.

"The three nominations were beyond our expectations, let alone winning an award," says the female singer-songwriter Liu, 27, who also works for a public relations company in Beijing.

Even getting to the awards, held in Taipei on June 18, was full of drama for the duo.

The day before they flew to Taipei to attend the awards ceremony, they performed a show in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. Due to heavy rain, their flight was canceled and they had to drive about 10 hours to Shenzhen, Guangdong province, to catch another plane.

Fortunately they made it to the ceremony at the last minute. Although they missed the chance to walk on the red carpet, they still managed to hug and scream in joy and give an impromptu speech.

It was a far cry from four years ago, when the Beijing-based duo were still struggling to pursue their music dream playing at a coffeehouse in the capital and getting 300 yuan ($44) for each live performance.

That changed when they met Ge Fei, their current manager, in 2011, when they were part of a project aimed at supporting young original Chinese singers.