When I was in college in Wuhan (1989 to 1993), some of the most popular songs were in Cantonese, and were sung by Hong Kong based singers. This was because at the time, the mainland just opened up, and culture wise it was way behind both Hong Kong and Taiwan, thus the Mandarin pop were mostly from Taiwan, and the Cantonese pop were mostly from Hong Kong. They in turn “borrowed” some popular song or music from Japan, which is even more advanced.
Fast forward 30 years, it seems to me the Cantonese pop declined a bit because the old generation singers in HK, who are mostly in their 60s, have mostly retired. One thing I noticed recently, there are some new singers and song writers that are based both in mainland or in HK, and they are continuing this important tradition of writing Cantonese songs.
I listed some of them below. Will update as I came across them more. Note the link in Douyin.com is not easily accessible outside of China. I will try to find some other sources in that case.
*Mr. Chen doesn’t have a social media account or something like that, at least I found it yet. He maybe the most prolific 粤语填词人。I consider him to be the best among the young folks too.
He is the author of 《時間不等你》. This seems to be one of Ayen Ho a.k.a. 何璟昕‘s grownup song, if I may.
I also think 放手以后 Letting Go is a bit similar. I talked about 放手以后 right below this. More on Mr Chen: quote Carlos (who is 陈钰海’s teacher) ‘s instagram
…… 第二站到了荔枝乡茂名，数年前在网上开始教学生填词，三年间陈钰海名字已经在国内填词界名无人不识，有80多首原创作品上市(果然青出于蓝)，…… (roughly translated into English: my student Chen Yu hai has made tremendous progress being a Cantonese lyrics writer in last 3 years)
One thing a bit unfortunate is Mr. Chen doesn’t have a YT Channel. Note for me personally it’s much easier to get to YT as I am in the USA, and it’s harder to get to Douyin etc. Also, I noticed quite a few people mostly posted on Douyin. I can understand to some extent, thinking it’s likely their main audience is based in mainland China.
Also noticed the composer for the song 時間不等你》is 石羽函 (baidu; apple music), and Mr. Shi is quite talented musician, singer and song writer.
@lokslyricson YouTube and Bilibili (note he has much more stuff on Bilibili)
He (or she) wrote the 【哪吒2】片尾曲《在故事的最終》粵語版｜港風填詞翻唱｜唱哭每個成長的孩子 Acoustic cover｜Ayen何璟昕 || Noticed the word “故鄉阡陌” and it reminds me of my childhood hometown and the village, the village school, and the 阡陌 I walked from my home to the village school, and so on. The word 阡陌 /qiānmò/ is no longer commonly used in modern Chinese (mandarin) anymore.
You may notice that I already wrote a blog post about her. One thing keep in mind is she is multi-talented, and she can do song writing (both compose and lyrics), as well as sing and producing videos. She manages all her social media and music platform on her own: as explained here 一個人就是一個團隊？/揭秘：我平時是如何一個人製作視頻的！
Last but not least, I noticed she does write for intro of a song on YT (e.g., again using 時間不等你【粵語新歌】as an example and graphic design too. Here is what (I assume) 陳鈺海 and Ayen 何璟昕 wrote (YT video here). Beautiful, isn’t it? I googled “芻狗” because I don’t know the word 🙂
She wrote quite a few songs, most of them are from young girls’ perspective: I would say girls between 16 and middle 20s of age. Her song is uplifting for the most part, but added a bit sad elements (looking back), and sometimes I felt they are curing, probably both due to her folksy music 民谣 and her unique voice, as well as Cantonese dialect. I am going to give some examples below:
As explained in the video above, this has a lot of culture stuff behind it. Keep in mind the lyricist: 林夕 is one of the best Cantonese lyricists in HK and in the world. Also Eason 陳奕迅 – Shall we talk 女生版 Acoustic cover (YT video).
And 最後的茱麗葉-容祖兒 愛後餘生-謝霆鋒 小日子-容祖兒 ShallWeTalk-陳奕迅 英皇金曲 medley cover by 許靖韻 Angela Hui feat 洪卓立 Ken Hung (about 10 mins mark): I personally like this video quite a bit as the lady (girl) next to許靖韻 Angela Hui tried to comfort her when Angela was getting emotional towards the end of this song. And the gentleman next to Angela 洪卓立 Ken Hung finished the song for Angela too. Such a caring and sweet team.
Another example: 遙遠的她. And just quote one sentence below:
I don’t see an “粤语填词” in Wikipedia. In fact I don’t know how to translate it into English either. Thinking about how I do that, as well as potentially creating such as an entry on Wikipedia. (Update) I saw 歌迷问：为什么说用粤语填词，比普通话填词难太多? at Zhihu.com. Also I did see 填词 at Wikipedia.
PS:
Not directly related to this, the other day I talked to my 15-year-old about the English song I listened when I was in college in Wuhan, and how much I paid for Whitney Houston tape then about CNY 15 Yuan. And I told her it’s similar to the cost of nice meal nowadays. Then I was a jobless college kid, 15 Yuan was something. I recall my dad used to give me about 100 Yuan a month in the school year 1992 to 1993, for a month worth of food etc.
I also recall, when I was listening to all those beautiful Cantonese songs, for that matter the mandarin pop songs written by Jonathan Lee (李钟盛), suddenly I realized that in a way, if we use the software engineers as analogy, the singer is a front end engineer, and the composer, lyrics writer and so on are back end engineer. We know in software world it’s hard to find true full stack engineers, but in the music world, Ayen is one because she pretty much does everything herself.
PS 2 (05-24-2025) I came across this wikipedia page on Cantopop, and I contributed a little as I saw fit. I am not fully convinced that “进入21世纪，粤语歌曲影响力渐减…” though.
(Original March 18, 2025) 她的音乐是治愈的 her music is curing – Yours Truly. This is one example: her original Cantonese song Moonlight – 何璟昕 Ayen《月光 Moonlight 》官方高畫質 Official HD MV, note the link is YouTube 油管. Here is Bilibili link: standaloneor official, good sound quality; live performance video. I encourage you buy her music from either Apple Music (iTunes store) or her Taobao store. Musicians need to eat and have other daily needs: we don’t want to be free loaders. Or if I can quote one of my favorite people in the world: if you are lucky, please make sure someone else in the world is lucky too. This person is Warren Buffett. Back to topic.
Lyrics for the song Moonlight 月光 can be seen here at jspinyin.net (this one has Pin’yin annotation) or 酷歌词 kugeci.com (this one has links to a singer’s other popular songs).
Another comment on YT: “When the world is moving to fast just listen to Ayen, and everything will be alright.” –Daniel Vache (very well said – yours truly)
She actually sing in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Her Chinese name is 何璟昕 or He Jing’xin in Pin’yin. In Cantonese, 阿昕 sounds a bit like 阿音 or Ayen in English. Both her parents are teachers when she grew up. In fact I saw her mom on this YT video (lovely mom/daughter pair, to say the least).
Here is her wikipedia 何璟昕 (Chinese) Ayen Ho (English). Full Disclosure: I made some contributions to her Wiki pages recently. It’s a somewhat fun experience for someone who likes to edit, write and knows basics of html.
Some social media and music platforms for Ayen 何璟昕
This is probably one of the most popular video platforms in China. I think Douyin is similar: the main difference is Douyin only has short videos. Note you will need to log into the website in order to have full experience with website or app. She did quite a few live show in 2020 on Bilibili, here is one – Ayen何璟昕 x bilibili直播 (纯享剪辑版) [2020.04.08] You may need to register at the website in order to watch, I did, mostly via my gmail and WeChat. Their system is pretty rigorous, I would say, at this time I still cannot upload video there. I think they need to verify my ID or something.
Douyin 抖音
(Update 05-24-2025) Now I realized Douyin 抖音 is much bigger compared to Bilibli 哔哩哔哩, as I said in my other blog post. Here is her Douyin: I think ByteDance (Douyin and TikTok parent co) longer video platform inside China is 西瓜视频。
In order to have full experience with Douyin, one will need to install the mobile app. Note the app is only available inside China. So for instance, if I want the app, I need to to try a different geolocation (China instead of the USA).
One can still watch videos without creating an account. To do it, one needs to pass a captcha – basically slide a shape.
She has quite a few songs on her Weibo, but this one (not music, about how to stay away from online fraud) caught my attention today – 我这么谨慎的人，居然也差点被骗20万… (personally I felt bad for her, but it seems like just something happens quite often nowadays, and I will talk about it sometime in the near future).
She is on WeChat (Wei Xing) and Red Note (Xiao Hong Shu) too – you should be able to search her name 何璟昕 and find her there.
I noticed her subscriber steadily increased from 47.9 k (03-11-25?) to 49.5 k today 05-01-25. It appears her YT channel is gaining about 1k subscribers per month. At this rate I am fairly confident that her channel will have 50k subscribers by the end of this month (I think 50.5 k subscriber count is within reach at 05/31/25). I hope my small contributions on the Wikipedia 何璟昕 (Chinese) Ayen Ho (English) helped 🙂
Some of her original work(compose, lyrics or both)
何璟昕 Ayen【向光性 Phototropism】原創音樂 官方高畫質 Official HD MV: she actually wrote this song when she was about 17 (year 2011) – 独立音乐人何璟昕：向光飞舞的风筝. She made an album with the same tile in year 2016: the album actually has more than 3 songs as shown in this YT playlist. I will update if/when I find the complete playlist.
If you like her music, you can purchase in a few ways. Apple Music store (iTunes Store, search “Ayen何璟昕“) and Taobao 淘宝网。Below is how you would find her music on iTunes store.
Apple iTunes Store (Note: this is available on iPhone as well)
On Taobao, you would search Ayen的店：she sells both her music and her Donna brand guitar there. Last but not least, she sells 吉他谱 Guitar Music online.
Some of her recent workand other songs I like
放手以后 via YT (网易云音乐, 2024) – lyrics available at boomplay; Author/Composer: Carlos’ Instagram. Also a short chip (similar to YT Shorts) on Douyin. Note for Douyin: I don’t have account with them for now – it still allows me to watch the video, if I click “dismiss” when it prompts me to put in my mobile phone or password, and turn on the volume.
I started listened to her a lot in last week or so, partially because we had 3 days power outage, and I didn’t have much else to do. I know you can argue I can listen to someone else’s music too 🙂 If my memory is correct, this time around I came across this new song 【哪吒2】片尾曲《在故事的最終》粵語版｜港風填詞翻唱｜唱哭每個成長的孩子 Acoustic cover｜Ayen何璟昕. Since then it’s been a black hole 🙂
New song《時間不等你》Time doesn’t wait for you: I listened to her new song 时间不等你 (2024) #粤语歌 many times. I really liked the music, the lyrics and Ayen’s singing.
作詞：陳鈺海 作曲：石羽函 編曲：梁雨森 (the link goes to Douyin, note you can still visit Douyin even without an account, you just need to complete the Captcha and also dismiss the dialog about phone number). Below is quoted from his Douyin profile. 棉花佬就是梁雨森🎸在此！职业吉他手，作曲/编曲 “棉花乐队”成立二年啦～ 以棉花乐队的形式致敬BEYOND乐队～ 不教学，不卖谱～
YT: 【粵語】想見你想見你想見你｜火土填詞 x AYAN何璟昕｜想見你劇集主題曲 (Update 04-02-2025) I liked this song very much. There are a few variations (Mandarin, Cantonese as well as different lyrics). I came across it at QQ Music first and noticed Ayen sang a few variations there. Then I did search on google and WeChat and noticed other versions, as well as the TV series that featured this song.
I don’t know about you, but to me this song reminds me 粤语更接近文言文.
Live Performance
何璟昕碩士作曲專場音樂會 (2021). Note she created all the below songs (compose and lyrics) over the years. She graduated in Dec 2021.
Also note, she pretty much managed all her creative activities by herself, this is from composing, lyrics, graphic design, photography, videography, editing, sound, and managing her social media and music platforms. She explained it here – 一個人就是一個團隊？/揭秘：我平時是如何一個人製作視頻的！
Slightly older videos (I believe that’s when Ayen created and uploaded videos to the Internet). Between 2014 and 2017, she debuted or sang quite a few Cantonese, Mandarin and English songs, mainly using her own acoustic guitar or ukulele as accompanying instruments and posted some of the videos on Sohu.com, and more specialized website such as yueqixuexi.com too. Some of the songs are also available on QQ Music (QQ 音乐）too.
(She took the video in Summer 2014, uploaded it to YT on Jan 30, 2020) 梁靜茹 – 暖暖 cover（吉他 + ukulele ）| Ayen 何璟昕 || On YT, if you want to look at her old videos, you can go to her channel, click on videos, and then click “Oldest”. This approach works across the YT too.
(Update 04-3-2025) I just created a YT playlist Ayen何璟昕-early: I believe those are songs/MVs she made between 2014 and 2019.
From the Sohu.com videos, the playlist above, to her more recent videos/songs such as 时间不等你, we can see her growth in many aspects. But I think she kept her 温柔女生 style, for the most part, through the years. That’s probably one reason I liked her singing.
She talked about her video creation and how she pursued her music career from a hobby in middle school. She actually made two videos because she wanted to keep her video under certain length. Below are two videos.
Some fun videos: having a sense of humor (despite all kinds of obstacles in life) is important. I created a playlist in which she has some fun elements in the music videos.
翻唱 (cover, or acoustic cover) and Playlists
Since this is getting a bit long, I moved the content here to another post here – Playlist.
One thing I may add is: in many ways 翻唱, or cover, or acoustic cover, is creative and sometimes hard work. For example, in this video, 謝安琪【喜帖街】Kay Tse 鋼琴+吉他彈唱 這是一首關於懷舊的粵語歌 | cover by Ayen 何璟昕, she rented the 1980s style house (惠州棠梨和光民宿), as well as some other interesting and fun settings. Here is another one 【Mr. 森林】Acoustic guitar cover | Ayen 何璟昕: if you watch towards the end, you will notice the work put behind it.
Last but not least, music industry is intensely competitive (I talked a bit here). I didn’t expand or elaborate, but in short, the top dogs such as Taylor Swift of the USA and the G.E.M Gloria Deng Zhiqi of HK/China makes most of the dough in the industry, via steaming, live performance, merchandise and products endorsement (ads). That’s all good, but we should not forget about musicians who are less famous. That’s why personally I support all my kids music teachers (as much as practical) and in this case, we should support Ayen 何璟昕 too.
If you are interested learning guitar (take guitar lesson from her), or collaborate on music creation (music composition, lyrics etc.), you may reach out to her “如果你想讓我為你製作音樂（編曲/作詞/作曲都可以），或者想找我學習吉他音樂課程”
