Call me The Geisha, and don't mess around with me, because if you do, I'm gonna call you a bitch.
In a video to promote her new single, China Wine, pastor's wife and former church counsellor Ho Yeow Sun, better known as Sun Ho, has adopted an alter-ego — that of a Japanese geisha, albeit a hip-hop one.
A version of the three-and-a-half-minute video has been posted on popular file sharing website, YouTube, and at press time, it has garnered close to 8,000 page views.
In it, Ho is seen in a risque dance routine with scantily-clad back-up dancers.
China Wine, released in the US on July 4, is currently No 4 on BET.com, a black music online portal, Ho told Today.
The Geisha, said the 37-year-old Ho, does not belong to traditional Japanese tearooms but the freewheeling worlds of reggae and Jamaican dancehall. The latter involves groups of DJs or rappers "dissing" each other on stage with music or self-created personas.
"I am totally comfortable in the role," Ho said yesterday, adding that she had "100-per-cent creative control" over her new image.
It was renowned rapper Wyclef Jean, the executive producer of her as-yet-unnamed debut English album who created the image of The Geisha for Ho.
They had met when Ho was in New York last year. He was meant to remix one of her songs, but when he heard her voice, he insisted on meeting her.
Ho has recorded five Mandarin albums.
In a separate interview with Today, he said: "She's so nice and sweet we gave her an alter-ego, The Geisha, and she's crazy!"
Jean eventually fashioned her after a real live Japanese female dancer who had won a lot of dancehall competitions in Jamaica. He also appears in the video.
When asked if she had "sold out" to cater to a slice of the Western market she is now after, and whether the video is appropriate for someone who has been looked up to as a role model, Ho said: "As an artiste, you have to grow and challenge yourself. This is a breath of fresh air for me."
But her suggestive persona has left at least one local listener scratching his head.
"The video is pretty raunchy. Maybe she's trying to shed her older, more modest image," said 25-year-old SIM undergraduate Shawn Lim.
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CNA
