From 'bedroom heroes' to music stars in China

Chris James, a 30-year-old German singer-songwriter, had no idea a song he wrote quickly in his Berlin bedroom had captivated millions of music fans in China, and would ultimately change his life.

Busy preparing for his new Chinese tour in August, James clearly remembers the magical — or even "confusing" — start of the story. It was about four years ago, when he opened up the official music video of his song Not Angry at home and noticed a few comments in Chinese under it.

Those comments increased day by day, and piqued his interest in what was going on.

He ran them through a translator, tracked them to a Chinese app and found out his song, which starts with a catchy humming section, had garnered millions of views. On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, the hit song has now been used and shared over 5 billion times.

"I was sitting in my bedroom, scrolling on the screen and it was really hard to process. I saw people singing it in schools and malls … This little melody that I made had traveled so far," recalled James.

The singer-songwriter said he simply sat down one morning and wrote it and recorded it, without much thought or any expectation it would become so popular.

Yet, on the other side of the world, it became an earworm — a catchy tune listeners can't get out of their head. "It definitely changed my life in many ways," he said.