Sa Dingding is a Chinese singer songwriter who was born in Mongolia to a Mongolian mother and Han father. She lived as a nomad with her grandmother for the first six years of her life, traveled throughout Tibet and Yunnan, and eventually went to university in Beijing, China.

Sa Dingding’s website says that Universal Music is introducing her to the UK “to lead China onto the world stage” and crack the Western market. While not a political activist (China’s laws make such a thing impossible) Sa Dingding brings China’s ethnic minorities into the mainstream. She sings in Sankskrit and Tibetan, as well as the near-extinct language of Lagu. Sa Dingding has even developed her own language based on the earliest memories of her grandmother talking to her as a baby in which words are formed from the emotions evoked by the music.