THE PROTÉGÉ

“If this album has one main lesson, it’s how to collaborate with someone,” Gareth.T tells Apple Music about his second album, The Protégé. The album title is courtesy of Wyman Wong, the acclaimed Hong Kong lyricist who served as the singer-songwriter’s collaborator on every track. “In a sense, it describes our relationship,” Gareth says. “I’m his protégé, and he in turn is a protégé of someone else, back through the generations.”

Where Gareth’s debut album to be honest was an intimate set of candid R&B confessions, this project is both broader and bolder in scope—not just in its themes of heartbreak, loss and perseverance but in the styles explored with the dedication of an apprentice studying a craft. He works with a children’s choir on “我很小朋友” [“just a kid”], delivers menacing orchestral hip-hop on “千人操” [“mind control”] and taps into the energy of generations of Cantopop classics for vulnerable ballads.

Apart from the Mandopop track “早到的u” [“your ride is here”], the album is entirely in Cantonese. Lyricist Wong’s first exposure to Gareth was through songs the singer had posted online. “At the time, I felt that his style and approach to singing—his choice of vocals and how to mix them—was strikingly different to today’s Cantopop,” Wong tells Apple Music. “I had the feeling that he might be just the person to redefine Cantopop for a new era. I was really interested in working with him.” He eventually got his chance, penning words to the nostalgic ballad “勁浪漫 超溫馨” [“hyperromantic”] and other songs before proposing a more ambitious project. “Wyman suggested doing an album together,” Gareth says. “That way, instead of just doing pop love songs, we could try styles that were a little more alternative.”

Most of the collaboration took place remotely via phone and text, with Gareth passing Wong melodies and receiving lyrics he then had to decide how to interpret. “For some, I’d have to express the feelings he’s written,” he says. “On others, he may have written arguments I’d have to deliver clearly. And others, to a certain degree, described a mental state.” Wong wrote “用背脊唱情歌” [“no full frontal”], a rousing track that builds from self-doubt to renewed confidence from Gareth’s perspective. “The great thing about music is that you don’t need to say much,” Gareth says. “My heart was already there in the music—the melody already said what I wanted to say. He listened to it, and then we just talked about what life was like lately.”

Wong eventually joined a session at London’s Abbey Road Studios where Gareth recorded one of the LP’s Sinatra-inspired cuts (the Cantonese “碧麗宮” [“palace theatre”] and its English version “navy”). The two also did the album cover shoot together, but those face-to-face meetings happened when the project was well underway. “The way we collaborated wasn’t particularly special,” Gareth says. “It was like working with a friend.” Wong adds, “It was entirely natural, with lots of mutual trust and respect, as if we’d known each other for ages.”

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