The clerk who became a star

last updated 8 January 2015

Kashy Keegan literally became a pop star overnight, said Anna Dubuis in The Guardian (U.K.).The British singer had been working clerical jobs for years, while trying to get a record company interested in recording him. “I’d work any odd job to afford time in a recording studio,” Keegan says. At 22, he wrote “This Is My Dream,” a defiant anthem about never giving up. Five years later, he posted his recording of the song on a website, and was contacted by HKTV, a new TV network in Hong Kong. “They had chosen my song from millions for a theme tune.” But the government in Beijing denied HKTV a license to go on the air, sparking mass demonstrations in Hong Kong. Keegan’s song quickly became “the anthem of the protests.” He was invited to perform for 30,000 people outside the government headquarters. “I was welcomed like a celebrity,” he says. “I had to break the news to them that no, I wasn’t a pop star.” In a daze, he took the stage and sang, and the next day, a recording of “This Is My Dream” was the top hit on iTunes in Hong Kong, beating out Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. The next day, he flew home and went back to work, resuming his life as “a pretty unassuming guy,’’ except that he was Hong Kong’s favorite singer. “Life can surprise you,” Keegan says.