Profile | Actor, designer, rapper, comedian, radio host – Jan Lamb of Cantopop duo Softhard has done it all, and more

Jan Lamb, best known today as a radio host, stand-up comedian and one half of the comedic Cantonese rap duo Softhard, started out as a graphic designer

Lamb has had film roles, including one with Jackie Chan, directed short films with the likes of Leon Lai and Jacky Cheung and launched Hong Kong’s hip-hop scene

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Jan Lamb Hoi-fung at an interview with the Post in 2005. Lamb, one half of Cantopop duo Softhard, may be Hong Kong show business’ only true multihyphenate. Photo: SCMP

Ashlyn Chak

Published: 7:15am, 24 May 2024Updated: 10:45pm, 27 May 2024

This is the 25th instalment in a biweekly series profiling major Hong Kong pop culture figures of recent decades.

Jan Lamb Hoi-fung has seemingly done it all in a decades-long entertainment career.

One of the most versatile figures in Hong Kong’s entertainment industry, Lamb is known today as a stand-up comedian and one half of the comedic Cantonese rap duo Softhard.

But he has also been an actor, emcee, radio host and art director – and he was a graphic designer before entering show business.

Born in 1967 in Hong Kong, he had a fairly typical Hong Kong childhood. He attended St Joseph’s College – the city’s oldest Catholic boys’ secondary school – and after graduating, enrolled in a design diploma course at the Caritas Bianchi College of Careers.

Lamb at a promotional event for his morning radio programme Softhard Kids This Morning in 1994. Photo: SCMP

There he met Eric Kot Man-fai and Wing Shya. Kot would go on to become a singer and actor, while the latter would become a graphic designer and a photographer, known for his shots on the sets of Hong Kong auteur filmmaker Wong Kar-wai.

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Hong Kong’s pop culture icons

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