(Visual China/Picture) Don’t Drop Key On the night of September 7, 2024, Ke Yimin posted the poster of his latest concert in WeChat Moments. She was wearing a burgundy turtleneck top, with one hand clenched into a fist and raised to her forehead, with short burgundy hair blooming

(Visual China/Picture)

不下key

On the night of September 7, 2024, Ke Yimin posted the poster of his latest concert in WeChat Moments. She was wearing a burgundy turtleneck top, with one hand clenched into a fist and raised to her forehead, with short burgundy hair blooming at the back. The theme of the concert is "Thank you for letting me love you so much" and will be held in Changchun on September 21.

This is the second concert of Ke Yimin's tour. The last one was held on March 30 this year at the Chongqing Grand Theater - she had not held a concert in 12 years before. I interviewed her after that concert. When

first posted the warm-up information for the Chongqing concert, she was mostly greeted with ridicule and ridicule. Compared with other concerts on the market, the volume of her concert was much weaker. The page of the ticket sales platform once showed that only 7 people "wanted to watch" - this news even became a hot search, becoming a new trend for netizens to ridicule her. One round of evidence.

However, the day before the concert, she posted a message on Moments, with a picture of a ticket sales page, and the words "sold out" were written on each stall.

March 30th is her birthday, which also happens to be a Saturday. The Jialing River is crowded with people, and it has become a check-in point in Chongqing. Standing at the entrance of the Grand Theater, behind you is the Jialing River Bridge connecting the two sides. After nightfall, the orange light on the opposite side flashes, which is the row of night lights in Hongya Cave. Ke Yimin's Chongqing concert was held here. A 4-meter-long and 2.5-meter-wide advertising sign was erected outside the

theater. Ke Yimin's photo is in the upper left corner. She is wearing a black gauze and is stuck in the black background. Two Chongqing boys passed by me, pointing at the description under their names and laughing: "Oh, she also calls herself 'Asian Bel Canto Queen'!"

This display board gives the organizer of the concert a larger area - A construction machinery company, under the company logo is more eye-catching than Ke Yimin's photo, with the company name embedded in five yellow characters "Star'Lin'Distance", accompanied by photos of four cranes, with the words "Reliable," written in white on a black background at the bottom. Carrying great trust."

Audiences entered the venue one after another, and the security guards at the security checkpoint watched her more carefully than at other concerts I have been to. After the news of the concert was announced, some bloggers threatened to cause trouble and prepared to bring eggs and throw them at her. There were actually several eggs on the plate behind the security checkpoint. At the entrance of

, the organizer's staff set up a booth. They wore work clothes of the same color as the crane and held a long sign-in list in their hands to give out tickets. There are other stalls here, including a large carousel for entertainment, and the prizes are refrigerator magnets or a 750ml bottle of water. The atmosphere inside the

theater is very different from that outside. It’s not that there are no audiences who come to the concert sincerely. A little girl is carrying a backpack, her feet are bandaged, and using crutches, carefully walking to the front row seats; there are fans who have come from afar. , with banners in their bags... They sat in the front row, holding light signs with Ke Yimin's name on them. When Ke Yimin appeared on the stage, the audience in the first row shouted "mindy ( her English name ) I love you!"

Ke Yimin, who served as a judge on "Super Girl", was merciless to some contestants and left many "famous scenes" " (video screenshot/picture)

After the opening, there were still some empty seats on site. The audience who were seated at random raised their red glow sticks and waved them to the song of Ke Yimin . Wearing a silver sequined jumpsuit and a white plush shawl, she sang the first song "Beautiful", which was the title song of the same name for her eighth solo album "Beautiful" (1999). The lyrics read: "I become beautiful. , because of you. I became silent because I was afraid of losing." After releasing this album, she entered marriage and gradually faded out of the music scene. He reappeared and became well known again as the music judge "Teacher Ke".

The third song is "Never Ending", the Chinese version of the theme song "My Heart Will Go On" from "Titanic". When the movie became a global hit, she got the chance to cover the song in Chinese, which was one of the highlights of her career.

In 1991, Ke Yimin participated in the "Voice of Asia" singing competition and won the runner-up in the finals with her song "The Power of Love". Two years later, she released her debut single "Too Silly" - which remains her signature hit.From 1993 to 1999, Chinese female singers emerged in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and Ku Yi-min, who was born in Malaysia, occupied a place among them. Her alto is thick, resonant and commanding, which is her signature. At the

concert, after finishing one song, she greeted the audience. "Hello everyone! What should I say next? I'll look at the teleprompter. Oh, I love Chongqing very much!" There was a burst of laughter at the scene. She wanted to say something in Chongqing dialect to interact with the audience: "What a hero!" No one in the audience responded. After repeating it three times, an audience member finally asked: "Do you want to say Xiongqi?" "Oh, Xiongqi!" An aunt next to me laughed: "Say something!" She had not heard many of Ke Yimin's works. , but someone gave her a ticket to the concert, "If you don't come, you don't come in vain." After

sang a few more songs, the staff brought out a red bar stool. Ke Yimin's waist was injured and he was almost paralyzed. Do not stand for long after recovery. But the audience didn't know it. The aunt sitting next to her said: "Yeah, you can't stand anymore? The female star has to sit down for a while, hahaha."

She sat on the stool and interacted with the audience for the second time, "I am 53 years old, and many singers At this age, I always drop the key. This time the music director was very insistent. He said that if you drop the key, I will not come back from the United States to accompany you, so I added movement because of your applause. The accompaniment was still the same from 20 years ago."

With this accompaniment, she sang "Hug Me", "On the Lonely Highway" and "The River". She studied music from primary school and graduated from the Royal College of Music, majoring in piano and minoring in bel canto, musical theater and opera. After her debut, several albums were tailor-made for her by well-known musicians such as Yao Qian and Bobida, and many of her works were notoriously difficult to sing. Over the years, she has never stopped exercising. The most frequently seen photos in her circle of friends are of her playing golf ( almost once a day) or working out ( every week). During that time, she also increased her exercise intake for the concert. . But in the continuous intervals of "River", you can still feel that her middle energy is not as full as before, and you can even hear some broken notes in the high notes. Some spectators around said: "The 53-year-old Ke Yimin did not lower his key but died."

This did not affect the excitement of the fans at the scene. During the interlude, the audience burst out several "Okay!" "You are great!" "I Love you!" When

sang "Li Ren", she chose a way to be closer to young people: singing with a rapper. "This rapper, I listen to his songs every day, he is 24...14...oh, 24k!" she said. When the rapper appeared, the subtitles read "24king".

As the concert entered the second half, several staff members and her daughter came out pushing cakes and singing happy birthday. She was moved to tears. The daughter was obviously a little nervous and her voice was shaking. Ke Yimin happily asked the audience to sing happy birthday to her again. After singing, she said: "I love you so much. Today is my birthday, can you give me another round of applause?"

This is the sentence that appears most frequently in the concert, and it has different attributions every time it appears. "Lovely applause", "gentle applause", "encouraging applause", "warm applause"... At the age of 53, she seems to need applause more than before. The phrase that appeared equally often was "I love you, thank you." When

sang the last song of the concert, she bowed to the audience and left the stage. The musicians are all still on the stage, and as usual it should be the encore session. But no one shouted "encore" at the scene, and most of the audience had already stood up and prepared to leave. Ke Yimin suddenly came up from the backstage, "Have you heard enough! How about I sing two more songs!" The aunt sitting next to her had already walked up the aisle and was being squeezed forward by the crowd. "Come on, come on, I'm begging you very much, I’m so demanding that I can’t finish singing ( Chongqing dialect: I can’t finish singing ),” she complained.

"Then I will sing two more songs!" Ke Yimin said. The theater door was closed, and the audience in the aisle found their seats. At the end of the encore, she officially stepped down. The audience walked sparsely, but there were still a handful of people sitting. This time they shouted, "Teacher Ke, sing another song!" A few minutes later, Ke Yimin, wearing the same clothes as before but with sneakers on her feet, sang again Played "Too Silly" again.She bowed deeply and said: "Thank you, really, thank you!"

You don't know what kind of day I spent

The day after the concert, I met Ke Yimin. A man helped her down the stairs. He said: "Mom, last night was really great. I cried a lot when I woke up in the morning. You can see that my eyes are swollen." Ke Yimin introduced: "He is my godson Ace, who also performed at this concert "The director."

She opened my outline and said, "Don't read it. There are no restrictions on my access. You can ask whatever you want." Even so, in her intensive output, probably no one can take advantage of it. Chance. "Don't call me Teacher Ke, call me Sister Ke." - Earlier, this title might have been mindy. "I believe you must come to see me with some inner voices, but after the conversation you will like me." She said.

After 2018, Ke Yimin seemed to disappear for a long time, and only became active again in 2023. She opens a live broadcast room to sell her own vocal lessons, and you can get one-on-one teaching opportunities from her for 299 yuan. But she was mostly greeted with curses. Some netizens spent money to buy her classes just to curse her in person while online. She finally broke down and cried after a class. She wiped her tears and shouted hoarsely: "I am also in my fifties. Why are you scolding me like this?"

This move did not stop the scolding. Netizens thought it was to fight against When he was a judge, Ke Yimin's behavior echoed, "Treat Ke Yimin the way Ke Yimin did."

In 2005, Ke Yimin served as a judge on the talent show "Super Girl" and became famous for his direct speech, sharp tongue, and to the point. In a competition in Guangzhou, after Zhou Bichang finished singing "Liberation", she stood up and applauded, saying, "You saved the Chinese music scene." In the national finals breakout, she taught Zhang Liangying how to sing and asked her to "sing freely and roar." Go up". The overly strong tone caused controversy. Later, "thousands of people turned against her" appeared on the Internet, and tens of thousands of netizens signed a petition calling for her to withdraw from the judging panel. Since then, she has appeared on many TV talent shows, and her comments have often become highlights of the shows.

In 2016, Ke Yimin once again served as a judge for "Super Girl". In the audition show, she had a tougher attitude towards the contestants. One contestant came up and said she had a cold today. She said, "Then stop singing and get out." A contestant came in and raised her head and said, "Are you awesome? Put down your figure... don't pretend to be a girl." "One contestant was vague when introducing herself, and she asked the other person to speak clearly.

After the show was broadcast, netizens thought that she disrespected the contestants and her words were almost mean. The program team issued an apology to the contestants and terminated the contract with Ke Yimin. Subsequently, Ke Yimin also released a video apology. But the storm about her has not stopped. Her comments about the players have been made into clips and circulated on various platforms. Her expressions have been made into emoticons, such as "Don't pretend to be a girl", "Put down your figure", "Stop singing and go away". ” and other sentences have become Internet slang. After that, she received fewer and fewer jobs. Even now that

has come back to the live broadcast room, netizens still haven’t forgotten their indignation and flocked to her. She sang there and insulted her on screen after screen.

"I have never learned to be diplomatic." Ke Yimin said, "I will definitely say anything."

In the full version of the audition video, the slurred contestant sang the chorus of "rolling in the deep" After making several mistakes, Ke Yimin said: "Why are you not confident? I hope you have more confidence. You will become a very sunny girl."

The contestant who raised her head, Ke Yimin actually praised her pronunciation, saying She has great potential and I strongly advocate giving her a pass card. In 2023, this contestant participated in another show where Ke Yimin served as a judge, and thanked him in person: "I think a lot of words were very helpful to me at that time. I was very unhappy that they were not posted online at all, especially when Teacher Ke told me not to do it. A copier must have its own characteristics." Ke Yimin replied: "Please forgive me if I am strict with you. I am a person who cherishes talents very much.If they don't give you a promotion card this time, will you follow me? "

" I am a very controversial person. Many times I really don't want to contact anyone in this circle, but they ( people around me ) will tell me, if you want as many people to love you, just For example, during this concert, he ( pointed at Ace ) shed tears in the morning. You have no idea what kind of life I have been through, and they know it very well. " Ke Yimin said.

Internet violence is only a small part of "what kind of days". She regarded 2018 as an important turning point in her life. In June of that year, her husband passed away due to illness. In a speech program, she recalled In 2012, Ke Yimin was preparing to end her marriage to her husband, but the other party was diagnosed with a genetic disease. In order to take care of him, Ke Yimin took care of the family while making money. After her husband passed away, she found a share of their common property. The house was mortgaged to the bank, and 5 million was cashed out to a mutual female friend of the two. Only then did Ke Yimin realize that her husband had cheated on her, and she was very angry, "I have been married to the Huang family for so many years, and I have never used a penny from the Huang family. . All his medical expenses were paid by me, Ke Yimin. She met the female friend, who knelt in front of her and hugged her legs, "I'm so sorry for you. I'm heavily in debt and have 11 lawsuits. Only he can help me. Can you forgive me?" “In one thought, I chose to forgive. " Ke Yimin said.

Another experience of despair was around 2003. When Ke Yimin first arrived in Beijing, he suffered a lumbar disc herniation due to practicing handstands and was unable to move for a year. When he was sent to the hospital, the doctor recommended surgery, but the probability of recovery was 50%. She refused and was taken home. A rehabilitation instructor from the national weightlifting team provided her with rehabilitation training. She waited for luck to come during day-to-day training.

When her daughter was three years old and in kindergarten, she returned home. The first thing I said was: "Mom, when can you hug me?" Ke Yimin said, "I heard it was really painful. It hurt to sit and move. I wanted to commit suicide." "A few times she climbed to the window, and was held by the nanny at home, asking her to live for her daughter. It took about a year for her to walk again, but the disease became root and she could no longer stand for a long time.

After recovery, She released the album "Good Man" (2004), but she has been away from the music industry for four years, and it happened to be the time around 2000 when musicians were most emerging. There was no place for her in the market. She went to Hunan Satellite TV's "Music". "Continuously Playing Music Club", "This show saved me, they found that I seem to be pretty good at speaking. So there was an invitation (from the judges). "Ke Yimin recalled.

Now, Ke Yimin works as a teacher in a music group. The father of one of her students was once a fan of hers. He got to know his wife because of her songs and lobbied her for many years to invite her to hold a concert. With the help of the other party, This tour came about.

When she is not in class, she hangs out at various golf courses and occasionally practices boxing. Music is still the most important part of her life. Not long ago, she returned to Malaysia and drank late into the night with her friends. She sang "Little Star" with the audience. In the video, her cheeks were slightly red, her eyes were misty, and her laughter was hearty.

The afternoon after the interview, I met my cousin in Chongqing, and she heard that I had just interviewed her. Ke Yimin was very excited, "I still have her tape at home, do you remember? It's right next to the bedside table in the room. "When my cousin said it, I remembered that she liked listening to music. She was born in the early 1980s and was one of the first people in the town to buy tapes. She had a large tape recorder at home, which she later replaced with a Walkman. That bedside table , is almost an exhibition of the works of female singers from the mid-to-late 1990s. Placed together with "Too Silly" by Ke Yimin, there are "Sky" by Faye Wong, "If the Cloud Knows" by Xu Ruyun, and "Every Time I Miss You" by Coco Lee. and Qi Yu’s "Camel·Flying Bird·Fish" "Her alto was something that few people had at the time, and many people liked it.”

December 18, 2016, Shenyang, Liaoning, Ke Yimin served as a judge in the Liaoning Division Finals of the Miss Tourism of the Universe International Contest (Visual China/Picture)

I am so happy now - Conversation with Ke Yimin

Southern People Weekly: Some The voice thinks that your tempo, breath, articulation, etc. are very self-contained, and they will find it "greasy". What do you think?

Ke Yimin: Do you think there are skills in singing? , but you have to know how to use it. When I teach my students, I often tell them that there is no singing in the world of singing. Do you understand? When you are a singer, you are just like holding chopsticks. Do you want me to do it? You don’t think about it, it’s natural. So I tell the students that when you sing, you no longer have to sing. Your basic skills include your breathing, force, articulation, throat sound, rhythm feeling, and volume. The size is gone, this is singing. Just like I sang yesterday. Singing must always have a sense of image.

What is the skill? The basic skill is skills. The bastard is self-righteous, "Teacher Ke sings with too many skills. "Yes. Whitney Houston has skills, and Celine Dion also has skills. He said that I have skills, and that I have skills but can't use them, but he hasn't even made a song until today. You should know what I'm talking about. Who. Many times, some music critics will criticize me and say that my singing is too greasy and doesn’t follow the rhythm. Come on, tell me what is music? The world doesn’t say you can’t eat fried rice. Is it right to only have egg fried rice? Is it wrong to add ham to egg fried rice? Does adding ham mean it’s no? . So some music critics are confused when they say these things.

I dare to criticize him when he sits in front of me. Why? Because I get along with music every time. You", except for the album version, it is always the same ( is the same as ), but it sounds the same in the scene, why ( why )? ( because, She! Singing! )

So I often tell my students that when you learn to sing, you have to sing live. What does live singing mean? I told him, come on, what will you do if you go to the funeral? How to sing at a birthday party? How to sing with an orchestra?

Many of my students go to famous schools, but it doesn’t mean that you will be top-notch when you return. How do I work hard? I feel very energetic when I talk about music. Why? Because I am exposed to it every day. I watch "tiny desk concert ( small table concert )" and sing in a small environment. It ended easily. I also watched the three- or four-hour musical. I won’t be afraid to sit down and chat with any producers because I understand.

Ke Yimin was scolded by netizens during the live broadcast. (Video screenshots/pictures)

Southern People Weekly: How are these improvements reflected? For example, what is the difference between your singing of "River" now and that of 20 years ago?

Ke Yimin: It is very different now. The first time I sang "River" was in 1996. Bobida and Yao Qian stayed with me for a week in the recording studio to learn all the singing techniques. Now I understand.

Many times people tell me to restore the CD. , how do I restore it? People who say this are confused. It’s impossible. If my singing method today is to restore the CD, I have not made any progress, and it is possible that I am lip-syncing.

This song has a lot of life experiences for me. Many people will say, Teacher Ke, you are very powerful. I am not strong, I am relieved. A friend of mine often says that except life and death, everything else in life is trivial. I scolded him: You are hypocritical because you have never experienced life and death, but I have.I had been with my lover for so long, and suddenly I saw him pulling out of a drawer. Those days I stood in the mourning hall and bowed to others every day. My husband is an only child and has no brothers or sisters. When I looked at my parents-in-law, the white-haired gave birth to the black-haired. In the past, this sentence was just words and articles to me, but at that moment I felt it.

So when I faced anti-fans, some private messages, and many terrible words, the company wanted to sue me many times, but I said no to them all. It's not that I am noble, it's because these people don't know me. They know me from the Internet, but they don't understand me. This is natural. Why don't we let go?

At the Chongqing concert, Ke Yimin’s daughter celebrated her 53rd birthday (Southern People Weekly reporter Zhang Mingmeng/picture)

Southern People Weekly: How much harm did your last marriage bring to you?

Ke Yimin: is very harmful. The hurt I felt at that time was a question mark: Am I not his favorite woman? Actually it's not about money. I know this woman, and my hurt becomes: When you did this today, didn’t you know that I was his wife?

I am relieved now. But am I not angry? Impossible, I'm not that hypocritical, I'm very angry. And there was a gap between me and my daughter in the past because my father was sick and my daughter went to an international school, and the tuition and medical expenses were very expensive. I have to support this family and I have to go to work. My daughter didn’t understand at the time and asked why her mother (who was rarely at home)... I’ll tell you what pain is. Once we went to dinner as a family of three, and my husband asked her to buy ice cream. When she came back, she had two ice cream sticks and one for dad. , one for herself. I burst into tears immediately. My husband explained to me that I did too well and my daughter thought I was strong, so she didn’t think she needed to care about me.

After my husband’s funeral, I told my daughter, I’m sorry, I can’t give you a perfect home. Although Dad takes the first step, he will see us, mother and daughter, and we must get along well and live a very good life. After my husband left, my daughter grew up and went to college. She said to me: Mom, I understand.

Southern People Weekly: Are you happy now?

Ke Yimin: is very happy, extremely happy.

Southern People Weekly reporter Zhang Mingmeng

Editor Yang Jingru