{"id":76322,"date":"2026-08-14T09:36:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T01:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=76322"},"modified":"2026-08-14T09:36:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T01:36:46","slug":"profile-alex-tos-40-year-cantopop-career-rb-origins-defiant-comebacks-acting-triumphs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=76322","title":{"rendered":"Profile | Alex To\u2019s 40-year Cantopop career: R&B origins, defiant comebacks, acting triumphs"},"content":{"rendered":"


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This is the 83rd instalment in a<\/em> biweekly series<\/em><\/span> profiling major Hong Kong pop culture figures of recent decades.<\/em><\/div>\n

Long before he packed out the Hong Kong Coliseum for his 40th-anniversary Get Up concerts last October, Alex To Tak-wai was busy changing the fundamental rhythm of the city\u2019s pop music.<\/p>\n

Emerging from the nightclub circuit in the mid-1980s with a kinetic, Michael Jackson-inspired stage presence, To eschewed the standard ballads of his contemporaries to introduce R&B and Western funk to mainstream Cantopop.<\/p>\n

Today, at 64 \u2013 though his age-defying appearance suggests otherwise \u2013 he remains one of the industry\u2019s most enduring and unpredictable figures, having navigated shifting musical trends, high-profile scandals and a recent, critically acclaimed pivot to dramatic acting.<\/p>\n

Musical royalty and the Michael Jackson connection<\/h3>\n

Born in Hong Kong in 1962 and raised partly in Malaysia, To comes from musical royalty: his mother, Chang Loo, reigned as Shanghai\u2019s legendary Queen of Chinese Song in the 1950s and 60s, while his father, Ollie Delfino, was a prominent Filipino jazz drummer and music director.<\/p>\n

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\"Alex<\/div>
Alex To at an interview with the SCMP in 1987. Photo: SCMP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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This is the 83rd instalment in a biweekly series profiling major Hong Kong pop culture figures of recent decades. Long before he packed out the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[25364,2649,11106,9289,4134,28196,27421,9669,4944,25573,16336],"class_list":["post-76322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-40year","tag-acting","tag-alex","tag-cantopop","tag-career","tag-comebacks","tag-defiant","tag-origins","tag-profile","tag-tos","tag-triumphs","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/76323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}