Singer Zhu Zheqin (Dadawa) is flying the Chinese music flag high after winning the World Fusion award of the Seventh Independent Music Awards of the United States in June with her album Seven Days. It is the first time a Chinese artist has won the award.

Launched in 2006, Seven Days is Zhu's latest work after the widely acclaimed album Sister Drum. A world class production team, including innovative composer He Xuntian, ensured the quality of the album. The music is a brave creation of blending space and time in a new pan-Asian style with Zhu's voice adding to the emotive offering.

Last year, Zhu was nominated for a BBC World Music Award on the strength of this album. Although she did not win, the nomination showed the wide recognition Seven Days has gained around the world. So, this year, at the Independent Music Awards, results that are determined via the votes of music fans online, Zhu has proved she is a force to be reckoned with in world music.

Zhu made her name for the quality of her voice and is called the "Chinese Enya" by her fans. The Sister Drum album came about after a trip she and He made to Tibet in search of the culture and beliefs of the plateau. Because of the Tibetan style of the music many people thought Zhu herself was Tibetan. She was in fact born and raised in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province.

Although her parents hoped she would become a teacher, Zhu has always believed she was born to be a singer. Her music career formally started in 1990 when she left home without letting her parents know to participate in the national youth singing competition in Beijing. She won the second prize of that competition.

Despite this early success she did not use her new fame to continue her musical path.

"If I entered an art organization, singing might have been a job for me, but that is not what I want. I hope to realize my personal value, which might not succeed, but is very precious. My dream is to make good music," Zhu said in one of her earlier interviews.

She then chose to learn music in southwest China's Sichuan Province, during which time she met composer He, who was a professor at the Department of Composition of the Sichuan Conservatory of Music at that time. The two have collaborated ever since.