My unknown song became a political anthem in Hong Kong
Matthew Keegan had given up writing music when a phone alert revealed a song he'd recorded years earlier had turned him into an overnight pop star 5,000 miles away.
Matthew 'Kashy' Keegan knew from a very young age that he wanted to be a pop star. He just didn't know how. He spent years writing and making music and knocking on the doors of the music industry but to no avail. By age 25, demoralised and fed up, he decided to quit. He took a job at a radio station and settled into his new life. But years later, when he was home one evening, his phone started to beep incessantly. He clicked on one of the alerts to find scenes of thousands of people out on the streets of Hong Kong waving the lights of their phones through the air and his song playing on the tannoy. The song he'd written many years earlier had now, in 2013, become a political anthem in a country he'd never been to. This programme was first broadcast in July 2021.
Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com
Presenter: Emily Webb
Producer: Andrea Kennedy
(Photo: Matthew Keegan. Credit: Eva Li)
Last on
Broadcasts
- Sat 15 Oct 2022 08:32GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa only
- Sat 15 Oct 2022 23:32GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa only
- Sun 16 Oct 2022 08:32GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa
- Sun 16 Oct 2022 22:32GMTΒι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa
Contact Outlook
Info on how we might use your contribution on air
Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary
Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected