While reading today’s local newspaper, I stumbled across an article about a Filipino acoustic sensation, Jovelyn Fuego, who wants more than a shoebox in the city.

Here’s an interview in today’s (Sep 27) City section of SCMP (full article accessible online for subscriber only) with Alex Lo.

If there is such a thing as musical justice, we would be listening to her CDs, solid across town. As it is, she is still struggling to put out her first record.

Meet Jovelyn Fuego (aka Joves), the city’s new acoustic sensation. Born into a musical family in the Philippines and raised in Hong Kong, Joves didn’t pick up a guitar until 2003, after her father died.

That year, she quit her high-paying job as a video editor at Star TV and decided the impoverished lifestyle of an artist suited her better. Well, I’m sure she wants to be rich and famous, and she certainly deserves it. She has been compared to Norah Jones, Joni Mitchell and early Rickie Lee Jones.

“That year I just played the guitar obsessively, 10 to 20 hours a day,” she said. “My physiotherapist told me to stop, but there were all these chords in my head and I just started writing songs.”

My boss, the editor, absolutely adores her award-winning song Shoebox in the City, a song about – you guessed it – Hong Kong, inspired by her own small flat in Central. He thinks it rather captures the essence of our city.

“I used to live in Sai Kung, and I loved it.” Joves said. “But I moved to Central. It’s where all the gigs are. I am now living in this tiny flat and I can’t even pay my rent.”

The city is really too confining for a Philippines musician and talent like Joves, unless you don’t mind playing in bars and lounges for a career. But she now aspires to greater things overseas. — Alex Lo – SCMP

I am not familiar with her music, so upon searching online, she was also featured in BC Magazine, a local magazine guide about Hong Kong Arts and Entertainment scene – a robust, lively and savvy publication that both reflects and builds on the HK’s dynamic urban culture. Here’s the excerpt.

How has this city changed me? “Hong Kong is an extremely vibrant city, has an intense energy, where people work hard and play just as hard! It’s very transient, you meet people, they leave and come back, then leave again. Old buildings and markets get torn down and [something new is] built up in a couple of years – the shop around the corner will no longer be there after you leave town for a couple of months. Where there was a harbour, there’s now a skyscraper with a huge shopping mall… But I love this city and it is a huge inspiration for a lot of my songs. Having grown up here most of my life, I’ve seen a lot of changes and it can be quite sad to see so much of original Hong Kong disappear. So personally and musically I’ve been affected by the movement of people through places and relationships.”

And that’s what this single is all about. Go watch!

Joves Music includes: My Smile/Shoebox in the City/U Wud B Happy/My Father’s Daugther/Always Free. Listen to Joves Fuego.

Luvvit!

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