Gia Fu is known internationally for her flair and appreciation for the salsa genre. Native to Hong Kong, she spins internationally, traveling to venues all over the world while producing music and bridging traditional sounds, from East Asia to the Afro-Caribbean diaspora.
Fu dips into recognizable tracks and obscure songs even a seasoned salsa head might not recognize — a direct result of the serious research she puts into her projects. Set on justifying her care and connection to genres she didn't grow up around, Fu embarks on journeys to dive deeper into the works of pioneers from a variety of musical traditions. In that way, she doesn’t consider herself a DJ, but rather a music curator and messenger for what can happen when you meld two rhythms that seemingly don’t go together.
An artist who creates community, Fu hosts parties under the name “Canton Mambo” as a way for people in Hong Kong to gather together and listen/dance as one. That’s where we started our conversation, which you can listen to in full using the player above. If you want learn more, visit her website or follow her on Instagram.
Gia Fu interview highlights
The following was lightly edited for length and clarity.
On her “Canton Mambo” project:
The entire Canton Mambo project started as research because I have always been trying to find [a way to] justify my passion for this music and the culture, because I'm from outside of this culture and music.
There are some songs I grew up with in Hong Kong never knowing where the origins are from … so I started part of the research on Chinese music, but with ritmos (rhythms) tropical, and eventually I start[ed] to build up a collection regarding this area. I want to contribute back to the community. I want to do more research. I want to share it with people who have the same passion, especially the Asian diaspora in the salsa scene.
So then I started to throw parties in Hong Kong, mainly with salsa records, and sometimes I would have two rooms — one room is mainly salsa, another room maybe Kento Pop Canton Disco. There's one dedicated to the breakdance community in Hong Kong because that's how I started when I first heard my first salsa was in a breakdance battle.
Sometimes, when you can't find your own community, you build your own community. So that's how I started. I feel like that's what the music is about, because salsa is a mix of all kinds of rhythms and the community as well. It is a mix of all kinds of people that made it — made this culture and the music as a whole and history, too. Apart from the party and the research, I was [interested] how the Asian diaspora got to the Americas and how we both influenced each other.
The angle I started recently was the music production part. I produced a song called “Canton Mambo,” which is under the project name. The other song is “Lotus.” They started as experimental tracks where I tried to infuse Asian instruments or samples from ethnic groups in China, and blend them together with salsa.
I kind of cover everything in this project. It’s an ongoing project that I'm still trying to achieve because I think it's very important to showcase not just my passion, but my respect for both communities.
How she prepares a set:
Everywhere I go, I tend to insert something that belongs to the place that I go to. First, I will research the crowds. Second, I will research the DJs that I'm gonna play with. The third is I would try to search for salsa that is made from that specific place that I'm DJ’ing.
For example, when I'm playing in Mexico, I search for all the cover songs that were made — maybe from Juan Gabriel or Jose Jose because there [was a] salsa romantica boom in the ’90s [when] they took all these boleros or romantica songs and changed it to salsa romantica. [It’s] just as a tribute of, like, ‘Here you go, this is for you,’ for the country that I have the opportunity to play in.
How she connects to the music and its meaning:
This answer starts with her talking about "Anacaona" by Cheo Feliciano.
I remember during the Black Lives Matter time, pandemic time, I made a playlist that is dedicated to people [with] sangre negra. A lot of songs are sung with meanings of social injustice or being proud of being who I am or the roots of salsa. There are a lot of stories being told in this music.
For me, obviously, I try my best to understand the lyrics. That's how I learn Spanish — in the first place, because I want to understand the lyrics behind the songs. And I would say that's one of the reasons why I like salsa so much because it is not just a song; there are meanings behind it, the meanings behind a lot of songs, the melodies that were made, the rhythms that were inserted into the song, which makes salsa … salsa.
