Bio:
China is a woman of the new millennium. Born in the United States and raised in France, she is multi-dimensional in her pursuits. As a professional vocalist, songwriter, music producer, television and radio host, China recently released her fifth studio album, “Crazy Blues”, in conjunction with a licensing deal between Universal Music Group International and her own production company, MadeInChina Productions.
Balancing an international tour schedule with her other professional interests, she has produced documentaries and radio programs through her production company. Additionally, China co-founded Notorious Communication, a full-service public relations firm focusing on Fashion, Culture and entertainment, whose campaigns service top-tier clients, including Vans, Etnies, Nike and New Look among others.
Having signed her first contract with Virgin Records France at the age of fifteen, China has since navigated the French media world while developing her artistic career. In 1999, she launched her TV career on French music channel MCM, then joined the ranks of MTV International, in 2004, as "On Air" talent and music journalist for MTV France, where she worked until this year.
She spent a year appearing on France’s prime-time TV talk show, “Le Grand Journal,” airing on Canal+ and hosted a daily on-air show on JazzRadio. Out of these projects, China created a music sponsorship program for the ERDF group, for which she serves as an advisor.
Beyond her professional ventures, China is an active philanthropist. She is developing an ambassadorship program with UNESCO partner, International Music Council, to promote musical diversity and open access to culture. She routinely lends her participation to charitable ventures, such as “Solidarité Sida” (AIDS Solidarity) and “Tout le Monde Chante Contre le Cancer” (Everyone Sings Against Cancer) and is an advocate of the arts in education.
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).