Kevin Yi

Kevin started to write his first lyrics as a student, and would always carry a notebook with him to keep his writing ideas. In his early career in the music industry, he joined the Marketing department of Rock Records in Taiwan. Kevin’s first project was Chief Zhao’s “A Tiny Bird” (我是一隻小小鳥), and its success led many to recognize him for his great copywriting skills.[1][2]

Kevin then moved on to serving as an A&R, and later joined BMG Music as the Marketing and Promotion Director. At the same time, he had published numerous lyrics that became top selling hits. By working hard and focusing purely on generating the best content, Kevin has successfully built his reputation as a lyricist in the Chinese music industry.[3][4]

Kevin wrote the lyrics for the Chinese version of “A Love Before Time”, the theme song for the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award winning film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This song was performed by Coco Lee and featured Yo-yo Ma for cello. It was also been nominated for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards.[5]

At his time serving as the Marketing Director at Warner Music, Kevin made major contributions in the successful debut of artists like Stefanie Sun and Yida Huang. He has already accumulated many classic works at this point, including Leehom Wang’s “Forever’s First Day永遠的第一天”, Amei’s “Remember記得”, etc.[6][1]

Over the years, Kevin has written countless hits that received great popularity, including Stefanie Sun’s “Kite風箏”, “Love Dictionary愛情字典”, “Someone Like Me 同類”, “Encounter遇見”, F.I.R’s “Crescent Bay月牙灣”, and Khalil Fong’s “Fu Ke Hui Yi復刻回憶”, etc. The song Kevin wrote for JJ Lin in 2013, “Practice Love修煉愛情”, won Hito Pop Music Best 10 Singles, and Singapore Hit Awards Best 10 Singles.

Kevin continues to play various important roles in the Chinese music industry. As he’s remarkably fast in writing lyrics, he’s been given the nickname of “superman” by his fellow coworkers in the music industry. To date, Kevin has published over 1,000 songs written for various artists, including Eason Chen, JJ Lin, Stefanie Sun, Amei, S.H.E, Wanfang, Andy Lau, Jolin, Leehom Wang, Wilber Pan, and Jordan Chan. His recent works include Eason Chen’s “Soar披風”, JJ Lin’s “53 Dawns黑夜問白天”, Amei and Sandy Lam’s “Double Shadow雙影” (song from drama “Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace”), and Mayday Ashin’s “The Hidden Memories 隱形的紀念” (song for the exhibition “Where have all the flowers gone?”)[7][8]

Other than staying active in his lyricist career, he is also very involved in identifying new talents for the industry by developing new artists and serving as the panel judge for songwriting competitions.

Due to his Marketing background, Kevin knows how to customize lyrics for singers. He can identify what the public likes about the singer, and write lyrics that suit the artist’s style and speech. These songs helped to position and reinforce the singers’ public image. In fact, a lot of Kevin’s work have benefitted their singers to rise to prominence, including James Li’s “Man on Wire” (走鋼索的人)、Jordan Chan’s  “God, Save me” (神啊 救救我), Stefanie Sun’s “Encounter” (遇見), and JJ Lin’s “Practice Love” (修煉愛情).[4]

In his lyrics, Kevin also likes to illustrate scenarios in people’s daily lives. Through segments of scenes that everyone finds familiar, Kevin can make the listeners connect strongly to the song, and can guide the listeners to form a full picture in their mind that’s unique to themselves.[6][4]