Singaporean Singer Boon Hui Lu’s Mandarin Covers Of English And K-Pop Songs Go Viral On TikTok

The popularity of social media app TikTok has grown immensely over the past few years, and many celebs have joined in the never-ending scrolling of content.

Of late, a couple of videos from local singer Boon Hui Lu, 29, covering songs in Mandarin have gone viral on TikTok.

She posted the first of her two videos ⁠— a cover of SZA’s ‘Kill Bill’ ⁠— a month ago, and the 48-second clip already has 1.3mil views as of press time.

“If Kill Bill (sza) was sort of translated into Chinese” wrote Hui Lu at the start of her video. She then sang a part of the song in Mandarin lyrics that she rewrote herself.

Although some of her lyrics were not direct translations of its English equivalent, presumably so she could stick to the original melody of the song, her cover was well-received by many.

Some netizens asked for the full version of the cover, while others praised her for translating the lyrics “beautifully”.

“Normally I don’t like translations of songs but this one was good,” was just one of the comments left by netizens who really liked her version of the song.

Following the popularity of her first cover, Hui Lu also posted a cover of K-pop girl group NewJeans’ ‘OMG’ in late January.

In her caption, she wrote that she tried to translate another song into Chinese in celebration of Chinese New Year.

She translated the Korean song in a similar fashion to the first one, editing the lyrics to make sense in Chinese while attempting to keep the original meaning and vibe of the song.

The clip has been watched more than 254K  times, with netizens again commending her for doing a good job.

While some gushed over her “pretty voice”, others also left comments saying how her version sounded “better than the original” and asked that she upload the song on Spotify and her YouTube channel.

The Nanyang Technological University accountancy graduate-turned-full-time singer-songwriter is currently based in Taiwan, but has amassed new fans in Singapore thanks to her recent TikTok covers.

Hopefully, Hui Lu makes “translating songs into Chinese” a series, and who knows — she might just start a new TikTok trend.