Sa Ding Ding: China's next major export?

Scanning The Independent the other day, we came across a piece about a gloriously named singer called 萨顶顶 (Sa Ding Ding) that caught our eye. Born to a Mongolian mother and Han Chinese father, the article calls her a 'former Mongolian nomad' who is 'poised to sweep the globe' with her blend of traditional folk sounds and dance music. Intrigued, we had a hunt on Baidu's ever-reliable MP3 search engine (not that Shanghaiist condones illegal downloading of course) and found that searching for her name in characters returns quite a few results.

Singing in Tibetan, Sanskrit, Lagu, and a Sigur Rós-style made-up language, Sa Ding Ding's music reminds Shanghaiist of the sort of thing Nitin Sawhney has been doing for years — folky warbling vocals and traditional instruments set to low-fi dance beats — but her music is certainly an interesting departure from the wave of bubblegum pop groups found on most Chinese radio stations (as much as we love S.H.E. and Jolin Tsai). People are already talking about her as the next Björk — although that's perhaps not the most favourable of comparisons in China right now — or the next Enya — a really unfavourable comparison in Shanghaiist's eyes.

To be honest, at first we found her songs a bit grating, but the more we listen, the more they are growing on us and a few tracks in particular stand out — '万物生' ('Alive'), '锡林河边的老人' ('Oldster by Xilian River'), '飞鸟和花' ('Flickering with Blossoms'). We reckon it's Sunday morning listening or the sort of thing you'd hear playing in an organic café somewhere but someone over at music industry monolith Universal is banking on Ding Ding going really big — with a series of high profile performances scheduled throughout the summer.