Hello and welcome to Meet the Writers.
I'm Georgina Godwin.
Canto Pop emerged in Hong Kong in the 1970s and became one of the defining sounds of the city,
shaping popular culture across Asia and throughout overseas Chinese communities.
At its height in the 1980s and 1990s, its stars were everywhere,
on cinema screens, billboards, television dramas and radios, spilling music into the streets.
Artists such as Leslie Cheng, Anita Mui, Fei Wong and the Four Heavenly Kings helped
turn Cantonese into a global pop language at a time when Mandarin dominated formal Chinese culture.
Well, my guest today grew up inside that world.
Born in Hong Kong to a Chinese mother and an English father, she moved to England as a child, carrying
that music with her while also trying for many years to hide the parts of herself connected to it.
She first became known as the singer-songwriter Emmy the Great, releasing four studio albums across two decades,
beginning with her acclaimed debut First Love in 2009. That was named one of the best albums
of the year by the New York Times.
Alongside her music, she's written for publications including The Guardian and Vice, composed for theatre
and television, and developed a body of work often concerned with identity, displacement and performance.
Well, her memoir begins at the end of that musical persona during a final live performance in East London.
And it moves back through childhood in Hong Kong, migration, family and the long emotional pull of canto pop.
It's a coming of age story told through songs and an exploration
of what it means to grow up between languages, between cultures and between versions of yourself.