Coco Lee will perform her first Canto-pop concert in Hong Kong

Pop diva Coco Leeand music producer Chiu Tsang-hei may look like an odd couple to be putting on a concert together, but they actually have a shared history stretching back almost two decades.

The unlikely pair met in 1997 when Chiu produced two songs on Lee's first Cantonese album, , which remains the only Cantonese album she has produced in her two-decade musical career. Chiu later became her tour's musical director for the mainland and Asia. In an interview to discuss their upcoming crossover concert, they can't stop complimenting each other about their early collaboration.

So perhaps it is about time they did something together in their home city. The concert, titled Made in Hong Kong, partly serves as a reminder to the local audience that the 39-year-old was actually — to many people's surprise — born and raised here. Lee spent most of her childhood in Hong Kong before moving to San Francisco at the age of nine, and later returned after finishing high school.

Sitting in a luxurious suite in The Ritz-Carlton, where she married tycoon Bruce Rockowitz in 2011, Lee sounds excited as she describes her love of the golden era of Canto-pop in the 1980s, which is also the main theme of the concert. Alan Tam Wing-lun, Danny Chan Pak-keung and Anita Mui Yim-fong were, among others, role models for the teenage pop-star-wannabe.

"A lot of these songs affected my upbringing. They make you happy and forget all your troubles," Lee says. "Everyone will go back to the good old days while listening to these songs. Life is easier when you are younger, right?"

The concert will also serve as a challenge for the musical director and the singer. Lee has mostly performed in Putonghua and English, and has a Western style of singing. So all the Canto-pop classics are new songs for her. "I have been reciting the lyrics every day, every minute, when I have time," she says. "I am the kind of person who takes what I do very seriously."