An innovator his entire career, Chinese maverick Dean Ting is renowned for his inventive, genre-blurring fusions. His slick blend of R&B and funk is a calling card, but his music has also come to represent thrilling collisions between Eastern and Western styles. Rock, soul, gospel and Motown all inform his work, which he’s often inflected with acoustic nods to Chinese music as well as shades of Mandopop. His lyrics, meanwhile, are powerfully emotive—take the moving ballad “Simon” or the reflective Ashlee Yip collaboration “Tough Days”.