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Emma-Lee Moss, singer-songwriter who released four singles as Emmy the Great, was born Hong Kong for an English father and a Hongkonger mother. He lived there until he was 11, when his family moved to England, one of many who left Hong Kong before the transfer of sovereignty from the UK to China in 1997.
Even as a child, Moss understood the meaning of the handover, which returned Hong Kong to Chinese rule after 156 years as a British colony. “Thanks to our British passports, we would have avoided the greatest conflicts our city has ever known – and their consequences, which are not recorded,” writes Moss in his memoirs. My Cantopop Night. Later, as a touring musician, Moss played gigs in Hong Kong, where he reconnected with his childhood love of Cantopop – specifically Hong Kong music that combines Chinese and Western pop ideas. In 2017, he returned there to recruit him the fourth album. That year, which marked the 20th anniversary of his handover, saw thousands of pro-democracy protesters take to the streets after activists including Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow were arrested. Amid the chaos, Moss sought to capture the voice and spirit of Hong Kong through his music.
In My Cantopop Nights, Moss describes the history of Hong Kong through Cantopop along with her history as a Prime Emmy winner. Here are some of the most interesting aspects of the genre, with Moss writing about how it has influenced his life and inspired Hong Kong throughout its troubled history. Katie Gee
Aaron Kwok – I Love You Forever
Aaron Kwok was one of the “four heavenly kings” of Cantopop in the 1990s, along with Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau and Leon Lai. Love You Endlessly is the song that launched his career. But this is also an important song for me because of the great haircut I got in 1995, when I was 11. I went to the salon and I remember thinking: should I shave Rachel from Friends? And instead I came out with a cut Aaron. I came to England from Hong Kong with that haircut, where nobody knew who Kwok was. I went from a world where he was a god to a world where he wasn’t.
It was appropriate to start my book with this song by Kwok because he felt connected to me, because I had his hair. We shared a silhouette.
There is something about the age of 11 that is magical. You have little self-control. You can choose a CD to buy, or your hair. It’s a time of transition where strange things are happening to you. I went through the crosswalk at that age, and what caught my eye as I was crossing was this haircut.
Faye Wong – Dream Man
The year after we left Hong Kong, my parents came back on a business trip and I went back. I associate this song – Faye Wong’s Cantonese version of The Cranberries’ Dreams – with a sleepover I was there with my friend Nat. He had just seen the Cranberries and gone to a triple bill of Foo Fighters, Sonic Youth and the Beastie Boys; they called me DIY punk bands whose members went to international school. For a week I stepped into 90s Hong Kong and back to England and turned into a subculture vessel.
At that time, Wong was entering western rock and rebelling against Cantopop. He did a Tori Amos cover, was in Björk and the Cranberries, and collaborated with the Cocteau Twins. Mixtape Nat made me that week into my whole teenage self, and we wrote a song together – which was the first song I ever wrote.
The Wynners – You’re Free
During the Covid pandemic, I discovered a 1970s album by a Hong Kong band called the Wynners. Behind the cover, I saw my father’s name! I remembered an old family story about my father writing songs for a band in Hong Kong, which needed English lyrics. He was in Hong Kong as an artist, but he had accepted because it sounded interesting.
It turned out that they were adults, and they included Alan Tam and Kenny Bee, who were the biggest stars of Cantopop. I couldn’t believe it. I thought that my Cantopop research was just for me and I was trying to find out who I was, but I realized that if I look at the history of Cantopop, it not only helped me understand the history of Hong Kong, but also gave me a great insight into the life of my parents when they were young.
The Wynners had a TV show where they wore ruffles and performed elaborate covers of western music. I was looking at these amazing videos and found the history of Cantopop that started with the Beatles playing in Hong Kong in 1964. There was an explosion of Beatlemania so local bands started singing in English. The Wynners were part of the first wave of Cantopop. So, my father wrote songs for one of the first Cantopop groups.
Beyond – Endless Sea, Big Clouds
This was Beyond’s song that was released before their singer Wong Ka Kui died in 1993. I was nine years old at the time and I remember watching TV and asking my mother why all the pop stars and celebrities were crying. Back then there was a big rock group in Hong Kong, but no one in England knew them when we came here, so it was like I was holding the name in secret.
During the epidemic, when I lost my parents who were in Hong Kong, I longed for Hong Kong. I used to play Beyond songs on the piano and listen to them all the time. He came from a secret group of independent bands, before signing with a major label. As a musician, I always thought that I was not from Hong Kong because I was also independent with my group. But now I realize that I am in Hong Kong as much as possible!
Sam Hui – Half a Cat, Eight Tails
Sam Hui was one of the first people from the Beatles wave of the 60s who tried to write in Cantonese. I love his music. He is a songwriter. He can make beautiful ballads and can bring the classic Chinese, but he can also do funny Canto performances while making jokes. I really like this comic song. It has the same message as Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, but 70s Hong Kong version: we’re working hard, the boss thinks we’re dogs!
I recognized Hui when I returned to Hong Kong as an adult. I was looking for Hong Kong. The stability I took for granted as a child ended and at the end of 2017 I recorded my album April/月音 about Hong Kong.
I could see other people doing the same thing. It was a time when people saw Hong Kong as a fragile thing, being in the middle of what was called “one country, two systems”. The young people who were born after the handover were coming of age, and there was a political insecurity and an urgency to preserve and discover what Hong Kong really was – which I saw a lot in music and art.
The story of Hong Kong is its sound and feel. It didn’t start with colonialism. It’s not what you read on street signs or in an English history book. Listening to Hui was the moment I realized, for me, I could get that reputation if I listened to Cantopop.
Tat Ming Pair – The Stars Are Shining Bright Tonight The stars are shining bright tonight
This song is on Cantopop’s first album, I’m Waiting for Your Return 我等著你生生, written by Tat Ming Pair. They were performers who came out of the crowd: activists who didn’t destroy music.
Their 1988 song Forbidden Colors was one of the first LGBTQ+ songs, and Anthony Wong Yiu-ming was the first Cantopop star to come out, in 2012. Tat Ming Pair was probably the biggest cult in Hong Kong and they always will be. They are proof that you are yourself as an artist.
This song is incredibly prophetic. It was written in 1988, before it was released, and it asks: will the glitter and beauty ever end? Will it all go away? I remember that these questions were part of the atmosphere when I was a child.
Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung – Yuanfen Fate
The song is from the movie Behind the Yellow Line, which is actually a version of the 2001 movie Serendipity, starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale, but set in 1980s Hong Kong. It stars Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung and is about people trying to bump into each other on the MTR tracks: if they bump into each other, it means that fate has decided that they will be together.
I went to China for being music in 2017 at a time when I was lost. In the middle of being, I discovered this idea of yuanfen, which is karmic serendipity. They say yuanfen dictates how two people meet, when they meet and it is the result of all the events in your past life. When I found yuanfen, it really changed my life. I lived a completely different life because of it. I still use yuanfen as the basis for all my decisions.
Mui and Cheung had a large yuanfen together. Both became pop megastars at the same time. He opposed Hong Kong’s conservatism and refused to give up. They shared this energy of abundance and creativity mixed with sadness. He died in the same year. They were icons and must have had a lot of karma together.
Faye Wong – One Person Playing Two Roles
The song was released in 1995, the year after Wong starred in Wong Kar-Wai’s film Chungking Express. He couldn’t be more popular – so he released this amazing song that couldn’t be less of a hit.
I discovered this song in my 20s, when I was on my first trip to Asia and Hong Kong. Everyone I met in Hong Kong told me it was AMK’s music: the first indie band in Hong Kong. AMK couldn’t be more indie – the maximum capacity they played to was 500 – and Wong was singing their songs.
It’s not a radio song and I love it. It introduced me to some of Hong Kong’s music history, and I heard about the indie scene that AMK pioneered with bands like Box. Beloved indie band My Little Airport was first signed by AMK’s Ah Chung.
I found this song when I was making my first record and I was anti-commercial. It was like I had found my perfect song. This word refers to living in a world that other people do not know. He is living the dream and playing two roles: it was like he wrote this song for me.
