Print

Mail

wiki links

Protest singer sings again

By Yu Sen-lun
STAFF REPORTER
Sunday, Mar 27, 2005, Page 18

In the 1970s Kimbo, or Tuko Mackaruwane in his native Puyuma language, was known as Taiwan's Bob Dylan, blending Taiwanese Aboriginal sounds into his poetry and folk music.

Named Hu Defu (胡德夫) in Chinese, he has been known as a singer since his teenage years, but his new and first solo album release has been delayed by 40 years.

Produced by Cheng Chieh-ren (鄭捷任), who also produced for the award-winning Aboriginal singer Samingad (紀曉君), with the new Aboriginal music label Ignite Fire (野火樂集), As Time Flashes (匆匆) is a retrospective album on Kimbo's 40-year singing career.

"It's hard not to be touched by Hu's natural yet powerful voice," said Lee Kun-yao (李焜耀), president of BenQ Electronics and a fan of Hu's since the 1970s when they were both students at National Taiwan University's Foreign Language Department.

Back then, Kimbo was Taiwan's highest paid folk singer, earning up to NT$25,000 a month -- at a time when the monthly salary of a Cabinet minister was NT$7,000 per month.

Kimbo, shown above and at top, performs some of his old songs recently in advance of the release of his new album. PHOTOS COURTESY OF IGNITE FIRE

"Maybe my songs were too heavy for the market or to package for commercial record companies. They were written not for publishing purposes in the first place," Kimbo said in a cafe in Taipei, a cigarette constantly in one hand.

Kimbo said he is not a prolific songwriter. He writes about one song a year, each one written, he said, after the pain in his body, heart and soul had reached a cresting point.

"I've sung that song tens of thousands of times. None of the times have I sung the same lyrics,"

Kimbo, folk singer and social activist

"If a song cannot move me to an unbearable degree, I would not publish the song," he said.

The blues he feels is from his 30-year involvement in Taiwan's political, social and Aboriginal movements. In all of these upheavals over the years, Kimbo's role hasn't been that merely of the protest singer, but rather he has been the frontman and organizer of many demonstrations.

In the 1980s Kimbo was a member of the tangwai (黨外) dissident movement, which was the predecessor of the DPP. He served as the head of the tangwai association's Minority Committee, which later became the fountainhead of Taiwan's Aboriginal movement.

Hu was among the first to talk about reclaiming land from Han Chinese-owned businesses and from the government, preserving Aboriginal names and raising the issue of Aboriginal girls being forced into prostitution.

Even in 1999, a decade after the peak of Taiwan's political and social movements, when the 921 earthquake devastated 90 percent of Aboriginal villages in central Taiwan, Kimbo emerged again, leading clashes with police over unfair treatment of Aboriginal villagers.

When Lien Chan (連戰), vice president and premier at that time, visited the damaged villages, Kimbo led a group to block Lien's way, confronting him in person to demand more relief work.

All these actions and sentiments have been accumulated and encapsulated in his songs.

The Longest Road (最最遙遠的路), written in 1983, is a song about Aborigines moving to the city to study or make a living. Why (為什麼), was written in 1984 to commemorate a dozen Aborigines killed in a mine explosion that year.

Darter, Clouded Leopard, The Basin Of Taipei (飛魚, 雲豹, 台北盆地) voices the indignation of the Tao tribe on Orchid Island, where the government built a nuclear waste storage site in the mid-1980s against the locals' wishes.

Kimbo also wrote folk songs, such as The Boy On The Buffalo's Back (牛背 的孩子, 1974) and Da Wu Mountain -- My Mountain Ma-Ma (大武山美麗的媽媽, 1985), to display his longing for his home in Taitung County.

Kimbo's singing talent took root in his high school years at Taipei's Tam-kang High School, a religious school set up by the missionary George Leslie Mackay. Students were trained to sing psalms and choral songs every morning and to play rugby every afternoon.

"I remember all the boys who loved to sing formed quartets and competed with each other every morning," Kimbo said.

He recalled a nun named Ms Taylor, who introduced Scottish folk songs and American Southern spirituals to the boys.

"I was naturally drawn to the rhythm of blues and spirituals and was gradually influenced by these vocal styles," Kimbo said.

"Little by little, I began to understand the content of spirituals and found lots of similarities with Taiwanese Aboriginal music. The repeating patterns of the blues are very similar to some music styles in Puyuma Paiwan music.

"The lyrics of Aboriginal folk music, like spirituals, tell about suffering. But I feel there is more praise to nature in Taiwanese Aboriginal music, instead of just telling about the pain," Kimbo said.

Romanticism and spontaneity seem to always drive Kimbo, making him a pioneer in many other businesses outside his folk music and social-movement activism.

He and friends opened Taiwan's first teppanyaki restaurant in Taipei in 1970. He was also once a partner in Taiwan's leading toy business. But these businesses were all flash-in-the-pan affairs, like many of the short-lived protest campaigns.

His free-spirited style demonstrates Kimbo's talent, but it is also sometimes a source of trouble for his producers. For instance, he never sings the same lyrics twice. Two years ago, it took him two hours to shoot a 20-second music video clip because he could not sing the same lyrics in front of the camera.

"I've sung that song tens of thousands of times. None of the times have I sung the same lyrics," he said.

Now Kimbo has decided to redirect his focus toward music, his one passion.

"I decided that this time I would lay down everything else and start to treat my music, especially Aboriginal music, with respect," Kimbo said.

As Time Flashes is meant to be a summing-up of his past musical career so that he can begin pursuing his new musical passions.

"I want to systematically explore the heritage of Aboriginal music, especially the abundant use in Aboriginal music of words like ho hai yan which don't actually have any meaning. I want to explore the beauty of these words and blend their usage into my own music,"

He will also work more closely with young Aboriginal musicians and music producers to help develop new talent.

"There are so many beautiful voices among the younger generation Aboriginal musicians. Unlike me. Only my heart still rocks," Kimbo said with a laugh.
This story has been viewed 6542 times.