Hua Chenyu

Hua Chenyu
华晨宇
Hua Chenyu in 2017
Born	(1990-02-07) February 7, 1990 (age 34) Zhushan County, Hubei, China
Nationality	Chinese
Other names	Hua Hua (花花)
Alma mater	Wuhan Conservatory of Music
Occupation	Singer–songwriter
Children	1
Musical career
Genres	Mandopop Chinese rock
Instruments	Vocals Piano Guitar Flute
Years active	2013–present
Labels	EE-Media
Website	Official weibo
Musical artist
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese	华晨宇
Traditional Chinese	華晨宇
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Huà Chényǔ

Hua Chenyu (born February 7, 1990) is a Chinese singer and songwriter. First debuting as the winner of Super Boy 2013, he gained widespread recognition for his music talent, strong vocal ability and stage performance after participating in Singer 2018. One of the critics from the show stated that Hua Chenyu has brought Chinese pop music to a new level of art after his cover performance of "Fake Monk" (假行僧).^[1]

Many songs he composed contain his thoughts about the world or imply his own story that he would like to share with his fans. Songs like "Qi Tian" (齊天),^[2] "Madhouse" (瘋人院),^[3] "Seven Personalities" (七重人格),^[4] "Bull Fight" (鬥牛),^[5] and more are all stamped with his unique creation and deep messages. In his 2022 interview with Bazaar Man Magazine, he stated that rock spirit is the base color of this life and is also the root of his music. In a music market dominated by the ballad style of Chinese pop songs, he refuses to be limited and be defined in a framed genre.^[6]

Hua Chenyu was born to a wealthy family on February 7, 1990, in Zhushan County, Hubei province. His parents divorced when he was two years old and during his childhood he lived with his father, who remarried when he was ten years old. He began playing the flute at the age of five and took piano lessons in the fifth grade. He wrote his first song at the age of twelve after mastering piano.^{[citation needed]}

After finishing middle school, Hua moved to Wuhan alone to attend the Fine Arts High School there. In 2010, he passed the college entrance examination and entered the Wuhan Conservatory of Music, where he studied pop music vocal performance and became the vocalist of a college rock band called Conseer.^[7]

In 2013, shortly before graduating from the conservatory, Hua Hua entered the casting for the television talent contest Super Boy, which was produced by Hunan TV.^[8] On his first appearance to the audience, he sang his original "Lyricless Song" that gave him the label of being like a "Martian" for his unique expression. Two of the three judges considered him to be odd or crazy, but after the third judge Laure Shang asked him a few questions and sang a lyricless duet with him, she said "he is a genius!" because "he knew intuitively how to express emotions through music". Due to the recommendation of Laure Shang and his performance of "The Kill", Hua made it past the first round of audition. He later sang with Laure Shang the song "The Star" in the final round on September 27, 2013. Hua Chenyu won the 2013 "Super Boy" contest.

After the competition, Hua was signed to the Chinese record label EE-Media, where most of the Super Boy and Super Girl contestants are linked. His debut single "Me and Myself" was released in September 2013. Hua also took part in the Super Boy Tour with other contestants, in which they toured eleven major Chinese cities.

Chenyu Hua went to Italy and Spain to film for the TVN reality show "Divas Hit the Road" in April 2014 and the show was broadcast from April 25.^[9] The first episode received the highest viewership in its broadcast time slot. In June, he was invited by the popular Korean eyewear brand ALO as the first Chinese brand ambassador and went to Korea for the advertising photography.^[10]

May 2014, In less than a year since Hua's debut, he announced his first headlining concert, Mars Concert. His first headline concert, "Mars Concert", was held in Beijing on September 6, 2014, before his debut album was released. Over 10,000 tickets were sold out within two minutes, breaking several records and making him the first mainland Chinese singer of his generation to hold concerts in a large arena.^[11] Another concert on September 7 was then announced and sold out. Due to the massive response, the organizers announced an extra show on September 7.^[12] The press conference of the Mars Concert 2014 was held at the Wukesong Arena, making him the first in the Chinese music industry to hold press conference in a venue with capacity over a thousand.^[11][13] The September 6 concert was broadcast live through QQ Music and Hunantv, attracting more than 400,000 online viewers.^[14] Over 120,000 E-tickets were sold.

On the same day of his concert (September 6), the international jewelry brand Pomellato announced Chenyu Hua as the brand ambassador for some of its products.^[15] Hua released his first solo album Quasimodo's Gift on September 19, 2014, both in China and overseas, which peaked at number one on the Jingdong Top 100 Annual Sales Chart (Music). This atypical album has genres including rock, indie and folk. Quasimodo's Gift does not feature songs about love and relationships but uses a first-person perspective to describe the world as Hua sees it. Hua composed three of the ten songs on this album, including the title song "Quasimodo's Gift". A sense of loneliness but not sorrow fills up the whole album.^[16] According to Hua, the album's main theme is "small": "At first I wanted to name it Size 40. 40 is my shoe size. I mean everyone doesn't need a vast space to live, as one only have a pair of feet of size 40, and just standing here is enough ... Because as long as you are standing here, you exist, and have a value of existence."^[17]

On November 11, the short film Quasimodo's Gift was released, with Hua as the main character. His songs "Quasimodo's Gift" and "Ashes from the Fireworks" were included in the film, merging the music into the story. The music videos of the songs were cut from this short film. The overseas version of this album ranked number one on the Taiwan Five Music Chart for several weeks. This album received several awards, including ERC Chinese Top Ten Awards for Best Album, Top Chinese Music Awards for 2014 Most Popular Album, Best Album Performance, and Best Album Production,^[18] Chinese Music Radio Awards for Best Composition, and Golden Song for the track "Let You Go".^[19] This album reached number one on Jingdong's 2014 music sale chart.

In November, he was invited to appear on "Say Hi! The Hit of China", the online variety show of Tencent (Hi歌). In the program, Hua chose to rearrange the song "Spring" and won the "Annual Hit Song of China" (年度Hi歌). On December 24, he sang "Shimmer" and "Quasimodo's Gift" with rearranged piano composition at pianist Langlang's Beijing concert.

On January 1, 2015, Chenyu Hua for the first time joined and performed in the Liaoning TV New Year Gala.^{[citation needed]} On January 10, "Shimmer" was announced as the interlude song of the Chinese television drama "You Are My Sunshine" (何以笙箫默).^{[citation needed]} On February 8 (Los Angeles Time zone), Chenyu Hua was invited by Billboard as a VIP spectator to the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.^[20] On February 17, he performed in the Liaoning TV Chinese New Year Gala. On April 27, Hua released his vocal experimental song "Cancer".^{[citation needed]} On the Forbes China Celebrity 100 announced on May 11, his song charted for the first time with the integrated ranking of 91.^[21]

In early May, Hua's Mars Concert was announced to hold on August 1 in Shanghai. Almost 10,000 tickets were sold out within 35 seconds while over 160,000 people were online.^[22] This once again broke the online ticketing record in the Mainland. Due to the heated response, his company announced two extra shows at the same venue, on July 31 and August 2 respectively. It made him the first Mainland singer to hold concert for three consecutive nights in the same venue.^[23] His concert on August 1 was broadcast online through Tencent and HunanTV (芒果TV). The Tencent online audience reached 2.64 million.^[24] This also renewed the record for online concert real-time broadcast.

On October 28, his second album "Aliens" started pre-ordering on Jingdong. The limited 30,000 release almost sold out within a day.^[25] On November 7, his first digital album also started pre-ordering. Within eight minutes, over 100,000 units were sold. The album sold 350,000 copied on the first day of release.^[26] On December 18, "Aliens" was released on overseas music platforms including iTunes and the overseas version of "Aliens" was also released on December 22. The promotional video of "Aliens" was aired on the LED screen at New York's Times Square for a week starting from December 23.^[27] Hua composed 7 of the 11 songs; for this album, he wanted to present himself as "big" and "domineering", in contrast to his first album.^[28] This was also the first time he included rap songs in his album.^{[citation needed]}

Aliens won many awards, including ERC Chinese Top Ten Awards for Best Concept Album, Best Vocal Collaboration for Kings and Paupers, Top Chinese Music Awards for Best Album Performance,^[29] 2016 Ali Music Annual Awards for Best Pop Album, Most Popular Album, and Most Popular song for Mayfly.^[30] On November 13, Chenyu Hua joined the television show Be the Idol (唱游天下) which was produced by Jiangsu TV.^[31] On December 31, Hua appeared in his third-consecutive Hunan TV New Year Countdown Concert .^{[citation needed]}

On January 8, Hua performed in "Langlang's Sky – Langlang and His Friends Spring Music Festival".^[32] The show was broadcast by Liaoning TV on February 1.^{[citation needed]} On February 8, he performed "For My Future Child" on Beijing TV Chinese New Year Gala. On March 4, Chenyu Hua appeared as a guest on the variety show "Ace to Ace" (王牌对王牌) on ZhejiangTV. His arrangement of the song "Boluo Boluo Mi" originally by Xie Na (菠萝菠萝蜜) gained widespread attention and positive comments.^[33]

On March 7, the interlude song "The Rampage", which appears in the movie Who Sleeps My Bro, was released.^[34] On April 7, he released the song "Mars Intelligence Agency", which is the theme song for the online talk show with the same title.^[35] On April 9, he participated in the 16th Annual Festival of Top Chinese Music as ambassador and received two awards: Annual Best Album Performance for his album Aliens and Annual Best Idol.^[36]

On July 8, Chenyu Hua's newly released song "Here We Are" was announced as the theme song for the movie Line Walker (使徒行者). Another self-composed song "To Be Free" was released on August 3 and it is the promotional song for the movie The Warriors Gate.^[37] On August 16, Chenyu Hua released his second English song "For Forever", which was specially created for the Mars Concert, written by Chenyu with WAVEBOY.^[38][39]

This year, Hua held concerts in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. The Beijing Concert was held on July 2 in the Wukesong Culture & Sports Center.^[40] Shanghai concerts were held on August 21 in the Mercedes-Benz Arena.^[41] The final 2016 Mars Concert took place in Shenzhen Bay Sports Center with Khalil Fong as the special guest. The live online broadcast of the Shanghai and Shenzhen concerts, supported by LeEco, attracted over 4.3 million viewers.^[42]

From October 2016 to January 2017, Hua participated as a celebrity mentor and judge in the first season of 天籁之战 ^[zh] (The Next) alongside Karen Mok, Fei Yu-Ching and Yang Kun.^[43] In this program, aspiring singers have the opportunity to challenge a celebrity mentor, who is assigned a song by the challenger and has 24 hours to prepare for the performance. Hua gained widespread recognition for his rearrangement and performance, especially after his own arrangement of 我的滑板鞋 (My Skateboard Shoes), entitled 我的滑板鞋 2016, which was later released on his album H.^[44] He won a majority of audience votes with performances of 流浪记 (Wandering), 故乡的云 (Clouds of Hometown), Dear Friend, 齐天大圣 (Great Sage Equal to Heaven, translation may vary) and 易燃易爆炸 (Flammable and Explosive). Hua and contestant Juno Su ^[zh] performed 南屏晚钟 (Nanping Evening Bells) in the semi-finals and 如果爱 (Perhaps Love) in the finals.^{[citation needed]}

On March 7, 2017, Hua released his third album H, which refers to his family name initial. After filming The Next, he went to study in Berklee College of Music until end of March. He learned singing and rapping skills but found many of the techniques are more suited to English songs than Chinese ones. He also learned how Pentatonic scale is used in Western music (as it was also widely used in traditional Chinese music), and he would incorporate it in his own songs, such as his arrangement of "Drinking Alone").^[45] On June 3, Hua joined television travel show Flowers on Trip (旅途的花样) along with Lin Chi-ling, Zhang Xinyi, Aarif Rahman and others.^{[citation needed]} They traveled to Morocco, Russia, Norway and Denmark, following the "One Belt, One Road" approach.^{[citation needed]}

Chenyu Hua was a judge on Tencent's new singing competition show The Coming One (明日之子), where his support for contestant Hez, a humanoid persona created using augmented reality and singing voice synthesizer technologies, sparked controversy on Chinese social media. The first episode of the show started live-streaming on June 10.^[46] On July 13, Hua was announced brand as ambassador of Estee Lauder China. On September 27, the makers of mobile MMO game Kings of Glory (王者荣耀) released its theme song for the in-game character Luban by Hua Chenyu.^[47]

The 2017 Mars Concert was held on October 13 and 14 in Beijing. Only one of the concert dates was broadcast live online and it gathered more than four million live viewers.^[46][48] From October 2017 to January 2018, Hua continued his role as a celebrity mentor and judge in the second season of The Next alongside Karen Mok, Fei Yu-Ching, Yang Kun and Jason Zhang.

In February 2018, Hua joined Singer 2018 (歌手2018) alongside acts including Jessie J, Wang Feng, Tengger, Angela Chang, KZ Tandingan after turning down the show for three years.^[49] During the show, he won first place in four episodes and his average percentage of votes ranked second among all the previous contestants in the six seasons of Singer.^[50][51] In the final episode, Hua's performance of "Light Years Away""光年之外"with G.E.M 邓紫棋 brought him to Top Four together with Jessie J, Wang Feng and Tengger. His final performance of Angela Chang's song "Shout""呐喊" earned him second place, after Jessie J.^[52] Chenyu Hua's performance of his self-written song "Heaven's Equal (齐天)" won Most Popular Song of the show.

That year, Hua composed the track "Halftime (we met here)" for Karen Mok, In May–September 2018, he participated on Tencent's television show "The Coming One 2" (明日之子 2) along with Chris Lee(李宇春), Wu Tsing Fong (吳青峰) and Yang Mi (杨幂) as the mentor for vocal track (魔音赛道). On September 8 and 9, 2018, Chenyu Hua had his 2018 Mars Concert in Beijing National Stadium on his fifth anniversary since debuting. The tickets were once again sold out within one minute, making him the first post-1990s singer in mainland China to hold a concert in that stadium with 90,000 audiences and the first to hold two concerts consecutively in that stadium.^{[citation needed]} On December 12, Hua won Musician of the Year at Harper's Bazaar 2018 Men of the Year awards^[53] and Most Searched Across Asia at 2018 Yahoo Asia Buzz Awards.^[54]

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On January 1, 2019, "Hua Chenyu Studio Official" posted its first weibo announcing the launch of Hua's own studio, which is still under EE-Media but operates independently.^[55]

On January 5, it was announced Hua Chenyu would take part in Zhejiang TV's variety show "Ace to Ace S4" (王牌对王牌 第四季 ^[zh]).^{[citation needed]} On January 13, Hua collaborated with artist and choreographer Shen Wei to perform a show, 声希 (Folding), in Yin 2019 Nanjing Pop-Music Concert (烎2019南京潮音發布夜).^{[citation needed]} On May 21, he announced the 2019 Mars Concert would be held on November 2 in Shenzhen Baoan Stadium. On August 20, he was ranked 33rd on Forbes China Celebrity 100 in 2019. On October 22, owing to unavoidable issues, the concerts originally scheduled in Shenzhen were canceled but he also announced he would try hard to arrange the other available stadium and schedule for 2019 Mars Concert as soon as possible.^{[citation needed]}

On October 27, Hua Chenyu announced that 2019 Mars Concert was rescheduled to November 15–17 days at Haikou Wuyuanhe stadium in Hainan. On October 28, "Conversation with ET", which was co-written by Hua Chenyu and ET, was published on NetEase Cloud Music.^{[citation needed]} On November 11, the music video of "Conversation with ET" was published^{[citation needed]}. During the concerts, he released and performed a total of 5 new song composed by himself.^{[citation needed]}. I Really Want to Love This World, Madhouse were released on Nov 15 and 16, 2019, respectively. These two songs plus Conversations with ET released before the concert formed Mars Trilogy. During the concert, Hua Chenyu introduced that these songs were written for the purpose of addressing issues of mental health. God Tree was released and first performed on Nov. 17. He later described that Arrival and God Tree are a pair like Yin and Yang, and they should be played in loops. He first performed Seven Personalities on Nov. 19. He later introduced that Seven Personalities is like a summary of the trilogy. On December 4, "I Really Want to Love this World" composed by Hua Chenyu, was exclusively published on NetEase Cloud Music, selling more than seven million copies and a revenue of over ¥63 millions (US$9.3 million) within six months.

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On January 1, 2020, Hua Chenyu was the first performer on the concert of HunanTV "2019–2020 New Year's Eve" His airtime saw the TV ratings for HunanTV got to 2.7% while the market share of it has reached up to 30.85%.^{[citation needed]} On January 3, 2020, he was announced as one of the four returning singers from the fourth to sixth season to participate in Singer 2020: Year of the Hits, the final season in the series.^[56][57] Hua performed mostly self-composed songs, including Seven Personality, a progressive rock he composed, and won the competition on the live finale aired April 24, making Hua the only returning singer to win I Am a Singer.^[58][59]

On May 3, the music video of "Bull Fight", which took six months to finish, was released. Hua collaborated with the Japanese director Mitsunori Yokobori and his team to create this video, which combined the special effects of CG and animation.^[60][61] Hua Chenyu released his fourth album "New World" in April 2020.^[62] The physical album was launched as USB format (Mars Deluxe Collection USB Edition) in mainland China.^{[citation needed]} It was also launched on CD format. Although a free version of his live performances on Singer 2020 was already available, sales of the digital album exceeded 1.65 million and garnered ¥33 million (around $4.8 million) by early August 2020.^{[citation needed]} Combined with the previous sales made by his single "I really want to love this world" released digitally, the total sales exceeded ¥98.6 million.^{[citation needed]} In 2020, he ranked 17th on Forbes China Celebrity 100 list.^[63]

On January 29, 2021, Ep1 of Ace VS Ace Season 6 was aired and released on Zhejiang TV. The season had 12 episodes released on a weekly basis which ended on April 16, 2021. Hua Chenyu returned as one of 4 hosts in the Ace Family.

On Nov 26 – 28, and Dec. 3 – 5, Hua Chenyu held a series of six Mars Concerts at Haikou Changying Universal 100 Wonderland. He released a new song at each of the concerts. He introduced that Airplane Mode was inspired by his talk with strangers. Flower in the Small Town was composed in memory of his mom. His mom died of cancer in 2021. Hua Chenyu composed the melody, when he companied his mom at hospital. Black and White Artist was written to address the issues of professional anti-fans. The rest of the three songs forms the Healing Trilogy. I Really Want Myself Back is the Struggling Chapter, Meet When the Flowers Fall is the Hope Chapter and Let's Go Watch the Sunrise Together is the Future Chapter.

On March 11, Chenyu participated as a judge on the Chinese folk music singing competition show "春天花会开" (Flowers will bloom in Spring).

On Sep. 25, Chenyu successfully held his online concert "Music Chapter: Mars" via TikTok to commemorate his nine-year debut anniversary and compensate for his yearly-held concerts. This concert fused rock-n-roll and pop music with a symphony orchestra, presenting the audience with an impressive audio-visual display. This online concert lasted for 1.5hrs and had more than 200+ million views, with 871.5+ million likes and 700+ million exposure on social media.

Hua Chenyu released his 5th album, named "希忘 (Hope)"^[64]., on Dec. 20. In addition to the six songs being performed live during his concerts in 2021, five more songs were included in the official album. They are: "向阳而生 (Growing Towards the Sun)", "点燃银河尽头的篝火 (Lighting Bonfire at the End of the Milky Way)", "当全世界忘了我 (When the Whole World Forgets Me)", "虚幻与现实 (Illusion and Reality)", "小镇里的花 (民乐版) (Flower in the Small Town [Chinese traditional instrument ver.])".

Hua launched his first half of the concert tour in the park festival format starting from April 7 in Huangzhou and which includes 11 concerts in 4 cities. The stage design for the park festivals followed the theme of "the Milky Way in Universe" which boasts a main stage of 100m in length and 70m in width, a huge ring of 100m in diameter for hanging various lights and special effects devices. The main stage is connected to a smaller end stage by an extended catwalk stage of 70 meters long. The main stage is composed of a series of long columns arranged in a triangle shape, and it is the first stage that uses semi-transparent LEDs with mirroring surface. The LED stage can either reflect surroundings or varnish during the day. The stage also has multiple movable mechanical parts that can be pushed out or retracted during the performance and there are many variations of stage configurations. The stage was designed by the team that designed for Beijing Olympics, and it is the most expansive design on record in China. The concert has an afternoon session that typically lasts 2 hours and an evening session that starts after sunset which typically lasts 3 hours. In the afternoon session, Hua Chenyu would perform some songs unplugged and play games with fans. In the evening, the magnificent main stage would light up in the backdrop and the hundred of lights would change with the each song to offer a fully immersive experience.

Then on September 9–10, 2023, he initiated the second half of his Mars Concert tour starting from the largest Olympic stadium at Bird Nest, Beijing. He used a four-sided stage for his stadium tour that included another 4 cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, and finally Guangzhou. He debuted two of his new songs "Sea of Wind" in Nanjing and "Ordinary to Extraordinary Life" in Guangzhou. Hua Chenyu attracted over 1M total music fans during his 2023 Mars Concert tour and the concert receives great reviews from fans all over the country.

In 2024, Hua Chenyu continued his Mars Concert tour that he started in 2023. He held his first two Mars concerts in the park festival style. Remarkably, after searching for an appropriate venue for three years, his team was finally able to hold a sunrise Mars concert by the seaside of Yangma Island, Yantai, Shandong Province on May 1, 2 and 4. The concert on May 4 started at 3am, and Hua sung for 3 hours until the sun rose from the sea horizon. Around 130K fans shared and witnessed the sunrise together.^[65] Hua Chenyu added a brand new segment to his song "Growing Towards the Sun" while waiting for the sun rise. The 16-minute long live recording of the song was later released on various music platforms.^[66] Although the weather report kept on broadcasting rain before the concert, it was lucky that the sun rose on a clear sky during the sunrise concert. The event drew significant media attention, and over 100 media accounts that belongs to various culture and tourist offices around the country reported it as the largest sunrise concert by the seaside ever held in the world.^[67]

Hua Chenyu also broke the record of Mainland singers who held the largest concert in Hong Kong. Around 100K fans attended his Hong Kong concert held during May 24–26, 2024. He was the first Mainland singer to hold an outdoor concert in Hong Kong, setting up his 'Mars ring' at the Central Harborfront Event Space.

Hua Chenyu started his stadium style concert tour at Nanchang, China from July 20 – 21. His 4-sided stage design was upgraded to include a new ground LED screen, beaded string curtain screen which was first applied to a concert, and a brand new stage lighting apparatus arranged in the radial shape and hung from the top of the stage. His music team made new arrangements of many songs that combined rock music with Chinese folk music. A variety of Chinese folk music instruments made it onto the stage.

Hua Chenyu does not typically discuss his private life in public. However, on January 22, 2021, he publicly acknowledged his daughter he has with another Chinese pop singer, Zhang Bichen.^[68] Hua Chenyu currently shares his life with a little cat called Perper.

• Quasimodo's Gift (2014)
• Aliens (2015)
• H (2017)
• New World (2020)
• Hope (2022)

Tours

• 2016 Mars Concert Tour (2016)

Hua's concerts in Beijing National Stadium on September 9–10, 2023, attracted around 200,000 people, setting a record for the most attended concert for a single show in China with over 100,000 people.^[69]

Concerts

• 2014 Mars Concert (2014)
• 2015 Mars Concert (2015)
• 2017 Mars Concert (2017)
• 2018 Mars Concert (2018)
• 2019 Mars Concert (2019)
• 2021 Mars Concert (2021)

• Official Weibo (Chinese)