Kiri T

Kiri T 謝曉盈
Background information
Birth name	Kiri Tse Hiu Ying
Also known as	Kiri T
Born	(1994-12-27) December 27, 1994 (age 29) British Hong Kong
Genres	Pop Cantopop Indie R&B Emo Downtempo
Occupations	Singer-Songwriter musician record producer composer lyricist pianist
Instruments	Piano guitar violin saxophone
Years active	2017-present
Labels	Warner Music Hong Kong Kurious Grocery
Website	kiritmusic.net
Alma mater	Marymount Secondary School Berklee College of Music
Notable work	English Songs 10,000ft. Temporary Psycho Catch Vibes Cantopop Songs Eggnorant Sandwich You Gotta Screw Up At Least Once Dear Kiwi Bilingual Bilingual Problems
Awards	Whats Good Music Awards 2022：Best Female Singer、Best Song（English）Silver Award《Temporary》 Music OnAir Award: Kiri T (ENEMY), (uknowdat), (Fuvk the Fairytale)

Kiri T, previously known as Kiri Tse, is a singer-songwriter currently signed under Warner Music Hong Kong.^[1] As one of the leading artists in Hong Kong who specializes in Hong Kong English pop, she often tops Hong Kong English song charts.^[2][3][4] As an alumnus of the Berklee College of Music, Kiri began her music career at the age of 14 when she started writing songs for major Cantopop stars.^[5] She debuted as a Indie singer-songwriter in 2015 with her first single, Twenty-Something. She continued her path as an indie artist while focusing on music production in the U.S. where she released notable tracks like Rearview Mirror. In 2021, Kiri released her viral album CHILI T which covers hit songs like Temporary and 10,000ft.^[6][7][8] In 2022, she joined Warner Music Hong Kong as part of the FUTURE IS NOW program and began releasing Cantopop songs. Her fanbase extends out of Hong Kong and covers U.S, Europe and Asia Pacific.^[9][10][11]

Kiri went to primary school in Hong Kong and secondary school in the UK. She took classical music lessons and began composing songs. In 2009, when Kiri was fourteen, she composed the music for Joey Yung's song 兩面 as her first ever musical work.

Kiri studied at Berklee College of Music in the United States. In 2012, Kiri produced the song 無臉人, and in 2013, she wrote the song & lyrics of ALL IS FAIR. She was signed into Denise Ho's record label Goomusic, and began to write songs for other singers.^[12][13]

In 2015, she released her very first single, Twenty-Something on SoundCloud. This captured the attention of another artist, Lucian, which wrote a remix version for her. Twenty-Something (Lucian Remix) got over 7 million streams on Spotify and labels were interested in signing her; however, she refused and became an independent singer-songwriter. In 2016, she performed at Denise's "Dear Friend" concert at Hong Kong Coliseum.^[14]

Kiri began her music career as an indie singer-songwriter in New York, releasing popular tracks like Rearview Mirror, I'm Not Here and Strangers. In 2017, she wrote songs for award-winning Cantopop artists like Cherry Ngan, Kary Ng, Jan Lamb and Waa Wei. Her debut album Golden Kiri (2019) and subsequent single releases which showcased her unique fusion of pop, R&B and electronic music have received strong local Hong Kong radio support and topped many English music charts.^[15][16]

Kiri was also featured on Denise's 菇武門 Podcast in 2020 after releasing well-known tracks Psycho and IDontBelieveInClosures. Later, Kiri, along with other artists formed the group One One Collective and hosted songwriting camps. Later on in June 2020, she released her first Mandarin track Fuvk the Fairytale. In 2021, Kiri T released her second album, CHILI T. The album includes well-known tracks such as Temporary, Psycho, and 10,000ft.^[17] Following the release of the album, she was featured on ViuTV's Chill Club TV show for the very first time. In late 2021, she composed Janice Vidal's Little Miss Janice and was featured on a ViuTV singer-songwriter program.

Kiri joined Warner Music Hong Kong as a part of the Future Is Now Program in July, 2022.

u owe me $$ (Single) & i hate u owe me $$ (Single)

Kiri released her first single with Warner Music called u owe me $$ on July 19, 2022. The song is in English, and it interpolates pop, R&B and electro-pop. u owe me $$ topped the 903 English Song Chart. Later on, her friend, moon tang, which is also an artist under Warner Music, thought that her song i hate u and Kiri's u owe me $$ are matchy, so Kiri made an remixed medley combining the two songs, named i hate u owe me $$.

Twist Cone (Single) and Strawberry Icecream (Single)

In October 2022, Kiri released Twist Cone, which was her first official Cantonese song.^[18] The track went viral in Hong Kong, which made Kiri decide to release the remixed-demo version named Strawberry Icecream. Strawberry Icecream was also her first visualizer style music video, but because of this, the video didn't gain much views on YouTube when it was released.^[19] On Spotify, however, the song was featured on EQUAL and EQUAL HONG KONG, which gained over 600K+ streams in less than 3 months. Some netizens have commented that they like the English version (Strawberry Icecream) better, but not the lyrics of Twist Cone since it's "a bit weird".^[20]

Dear Kiwi (Single) and One Day I Might Have A Say (Single)

Kiri released her second cantonese song, Dear Kiwi after a collab with MC Cheung. The MV was filmed in Los Angeles, USA, which, Kiri, playing as a ballet, learns to not give in to other's expectation and be her true self. Dear Kiwi topped the 903 Cantonese chart, which was her first "champion" song on Hong Kong cantonese song charts.^[21] The English version, One Day I Might Have A Say, was the acoustic demo version of Dear Kiwi, which was a visualizer again, after Strawberry Icecream. The visualizer was a vlog of Kiri's trip in L.A., and the song became popular on Spotify after getting featured on the playlist ".ORG". Kiri was also chosen as Spotify Hong Kong's EQUAL cover artist in the same month.^[22]

Eggnorant Sandwich (Single)

In August 2023, Kiri released a funky-pop single Eggnorant Sandwich (originally called Pottery Farm as the demo version), which topped the CHILL CLUB chart for the week.^[23] She wrote the song with her friends Adam Pondang and Zev Troxler in a writing session in the US, with lyrics by Chung Suet and Kiri herself.

not so xmas xmas (EP)

In December, she collabed with Moon Tang again and released a Christmas special EP called not so xmas xmas, and songs You Make It Feel Like Christmas and Twelve Nights of Christmas were featured on Topsify's playlist 100 Greatest Christmas Songs Ever. The EP went viral and got over 2 million streams in one month.

In late December 2023, Kiri was chosen as 7 Hong Kong female singers to watch out for in 2024 by International magazine Tatler and Hong Kong's Top 100 Influencers by #legend magazine. ^[24][25]

You Gotta Screw Up At Least Once (Single)

In March 2024, she released You Gotta Screw Up At Least Once, which got 1.2 million streams on Spotify^[26] in just one and a half months; the song was also her first MV on YouTube that got over 1 million plays. In the music video, Kiri was on a old truck, playing the rhythm of the song on an abandoned piano. A traffic violation was accidentally captured in the music video; in the middle of the song, a minibus was seen following the truck Kiri was on and crossed the double white line possibly due to the slow speed of the truck. Netizens joked that the MV turned into a car cam film. You Gotta Screw Up At Least Once also topped many charts, including Hong Kong Billboard (#1), 903 (#1), CHILL CLUB (#5) and YouTube Viral: Music (#5).^[27] The song also helped her gained at least 5K subscribers and 10K+ Instagram followers. Her YouTube channels (Personal Channel and Topic Channel) was also merged, and her own channel became the Official Artist Channel in the same month.^[28]

Bilingual Problems (Single) Kiri released her 5th cantopop song on June 6, 2024, named Bilingual Problems. The song was originally composed in English by Kiri T and Gavin Chan. Later on, Kiri, alongside Justin Yau re-arranged the song, while Chan Wing Him contributed Cantonese lyrics.^[29][30] The MV was filmed in Wanhua District, Taipei and in one-shot, featuring Kiri holding English letter balloons & a kiwi balloon in one hand and a old-fashioned recorder in another hand. She wore the same outfit as the MV of You Gotta Screw Up At Least Once.^[27]

Kiri used to have her own music label, Kurious Grocery, a subsidiary of Denise Ho's Goomusic with Canaan Fong as her manager.^[31] The label was created back in 2017 but ceased operations in 2022 when Kiri joined Warner Music Hong Kong.

• Kiri is "obsessed" with Kiwis and named her fans off the name of fruit.
• Kiri, HIRSK and Daniel Chu formed the 4AM Class and often write songs together. The three are also alumni of the Berklee College of Music.
• Kiri was the representative artist of Hong Kong in March 2023 for Spotify's EQUAL program.
• During her time in New York / Boston, Kiri made a series of tracks exclusively for Instagram / Facebook. The whole series is only available for stream on YouTube but not digital music platforms. However, Kiri made a mini-album called Sugar Tapes which includes a selection of tracks and beats. One of the most well-known track, Catch Vibes, has been used on over 200K+ Instagram Reels and 500K+ streams on Spotify.
• Kiri got her first cantonese "champion" song on the 903 Radio Cantonese Song chart (叱咤) in Week 21 of 2023. She became the first singer in Hong Kong to win first place on the 903 豁達推介 (English song chart), then on 903 專業推介 (cantonese song chart) years after.
• Kiri got her cantonese champion songs in Week 21 in both 2023 and 2024 with Dear Kiwi (2023) and You Gotta Screw Up At Least Once (2024).

• On August 19, 2023, Kiri was invited as a guest singer at the Music is Live Dear Jane x MC concert and performed 世一(不可一世) & Way Back Into Love with MC Cheung. However, when she was singing 世一 (不可一世), she was heavily off tune, which she later was teased by colleagues at Warner Music (MC and Tim@Dear Jane). She laughed at herself as to whether her career came to an end, and MC comforted her later on, saying on a Instagram story that even though her performance wasn't ideal, he feels proud of Kiri and explained people won't remember a singer's good performance but the bad ones. Referencing to himself, he told Kiri that nobody is perfect and every singer has one of these times.
• A traffic violation was accidentally captured in the music video of Kiri's song You Gotta Screw Up At Least Once; in the middle of the song, a minibus was seen following the truck Kiri was on and crossed the double white line possibly due to the slow speed of the truck. Netizens joked that the MV turned into a car cam film.
• Due to an unknown reason, Kiri's albums Golden Kiri (2019) and CHILI T (2021) were never uploaded or available on YouTube Music. However, the problem was resolved on November 11, 2023, and the albums were finally uploaded and available for streaming. Only the album Sugar Tapes remains under the name of Various Artists.
• Kiri's album CHILI T on Spotify was changed to Single on November 1, 2023. The problem was resolved on November 8, 2023.
• 2019 singles "IDontBelieveInClosures" and "IDontBelieveInClosures (Remix)" were uploaded on Spotify using a different artist profile named Kiri T due to the change in music distribution companies Kiri used. The account was later merged with her current artist profile.

Composed Songs

moon tang

As artists under the same label Warner Music Hong Kong that share similarities in music style,^[32] Kiri T and moon tang often collaborate on musical projects. In terms of music, Kiri and moon first started their musical “friendship” back in 2021 when they held a joint concert; then, in 2022, Kiri joined Warner Music Hong Kong and released the single, u owe me $$. At the same time, moon tang also released the catchy song i hate u. The two singer-songwriters decided to make a remixed medley of the two songs, named i hate u owe me $$, which was the first song they collabed on.^[33] Since then, they have appeared in multiple TV programs and concerts together such as Music Panda, Summer Vibes by Pacific Place, YouTube Music Night, FUTURE IS NOW, CHILL CLUB and many more. In December 2023, they collabed again and released the viral Christmas EP, not so xmas xmas. As of 2024, they have collabed and co-released a total of 7 songs and 1 EP.

HIRSK and Daniel Chu

As alumnus of the Berklee College of Music, Kiri T, HIRSK and Daniel Chu formed the 4AM Class and often write songs together. Their music style often combines electropop, jazz and R&B.

• Whats Good Music Awards 2022：Best Female Singer, Best Song (English) Bronze Award: Kiri T - Temporary
• Music OnAir Award Best Songs: Kiri T - ENEMY, Kiri T - uknowdat (feat. Geniuz F the FUTURE), Kiri T - Fuvk the Fairytale
• 22nd CASH Golden Sail Music Awards Best Melody: Kiri T - You Gotta Screw Up At Least Once