May Sweet

Trained in classical Burmese music, May Sweet with the help of noted musician Maung Kyemon turned to old Burmese songs from the pre-war era (1930s) by the great May Shin, and updated them with modern Western music and arrangements.

Her covers proved immensely popular, and she became a household name at 17.

At 17, riding her popularity as a singer, May Sweet entered into a film career, getting the lead role in her first film.

She made numerous films opposite the top leading men of the day such as Kyaw Thu, Yan Aung, Zin Wine, Pyay Nyein, and Ye Aung.

Her follow-up album was with her mother, covering many of her mother's hits from the 1950s.

May Sweet (မေဆွိ; ; born Swe Aye Myint (MY ဆွေအေးမြင့် ) on 13 February 1962) is a Burmese singer and actress, and considered one of the most commercially successful female singers in the history of Burmese pop music.

She is most famous for her Burmese covers of Euro disco and American rock and pop songs as well as classic Burmese songs from the pre- and post-war eras.

Swe Aye Myint was born on 13 February 1962 in Yangon, Myanmar to Myint Myint Khin, a top leading lady of Burmese cinema and a singer, and Khin Maung Nyunt, a lawyer.

Swe Aye Myint, nicknamed Mi Swe, was the fourth child of five daughters.

she has British descent on her mother's side.Deeply interested in music since childhood, young Mi Swe was able to sing classical Burmese songs called thachingyi by 8.

Her singing ability caught the ear of Ba Than, a famous Burmese harp master, and a family friend.

Ba Than trained her to play the Burmese harp.

Still at age eight, she first made her concert appearance at a Taungoo pagoda festival (Festival of the Twenty Eight Buddhas), singing Nwe Yin Win's famous hit Mimi Lay Ye Maymay Kyaung.

May Sweet was the dominant female singer of Burmese pop music from the late 1970s to the 1980s, bridging popular singers from the 1970s like Nwe Yin Win and L Khun Yi to Maykhala, her main rival in the mid-1980s, and to Hayma Ne Win and Connie in the late 1980s.

She also collaborated with other male singers, most notably with Kaiser.

She achieved immense popularity starting in the late 1970s with a series of repackaged Western cover albums called Panthi Thachinmya (lit. Apple Songs), written by successful cover songwriter Thukhamein Hlaing, and a series of classic Burmese cover albums produced by Maung Kyemon.

Her covers, some of which were originally written for male singers, often became more popular than the original covers.

She also had many successful "original" songs as she was the top choice of songwriters of the day.

Her most famous song, or her signature song, is Maung.

Soon after her first stage appearance in 1970, Mi Swe was offered a chance to record a duet song with Nwe Yin Win, another family friend, in Nwe Yin Win's upcoming album.

Right before the release of the album, Myint Myint Khin chose a stage name for her daughter.

The name was May Sweet, the result of Burmese wordplay (called Zagalein) of the name Mi Swe to May Sweet.

(Zagalein is similar to vesre in Argentine Spanish, or verlan in French, reversing the sounds of a word or words to produce a slang or colloquial name.)

At 14, May Sweet's career began in earnest.

She released her first album with Zaw One, one of the leading men of Burmese cinema at that time.

May Sweet graduated from the Dagon 1 High School in 1978, and received a bachelor's degree in botany from Yangon University in 1982.

At the peak of her popularity in the early to mid-1980s, the fourth daughter of five-time Myanmar Academy Award winner Myint Myint Khin also starred in a number of films where she appeared with leading men of the day like Pyay Nyein and Kyaw Thu.

In the 1990s, she chose to focus on her music career, and stopped making films.

Though the Burmese pop music scene had changed from slow rock/pop to Europop, techno, heavy metal and hip-hop, she stayed with her tried-and-true pop ballads.

With her strong fan base, she was able to keep releasing new albums.

Ironically, the next generation of female singers promptly covered many of her popular songs (both covers and originals) though none achieved her success.

The songs remain closely identified with her.

The longevity of her popularity and dominance at the top remains unparalleled in Myanmar where even most successful female singers do not last more than a few years.

To date, she remains the only singer to have achieved success in both Western-style pop and classic Burmese music genres.

May Sweet left the Burmese music scene and the country in the late 1990s after she was married to a Burmese-American from New York City in 1997.

She resides with her husband in Delaware, US.

They have 1 daughter.

She continues to perform for Burmese expatriate audiences around the world.

Later, she returned to Myanmar and sings her songs again and make many shows.

Now, she is as a judge in Myanmar Idol.