World music singer Difang of Taiwan's Ami tribe dies at 81

Asian Political News, April 1, 2002

TAIPEI, March 29 Kyodo

Taiwanese betelnut farmer-turned-singer Difang, who helped put Taiwan's aboriginal music on the world stage, died at a hospital in eastern Taiwan on Friday. He was 81.

Officials with the Mackay Memorial Hospital in southeastern Taitung City said the singer, who ailed from diabetes, was hospitalized with a cold some two weeks ago.

He died from cold-related complications, they said.

Difang, who hails from Taitung City, stumbled into the international limelight rather accidentally after he and his wife Inai claimed that an unauthorized recording of the duo singing an Ami folk tune was used by the German pop group Enigma in their 1994 hit song ''Return to Innocence.''

It turned out that the recording had been made when a group of singers from Taiwan's various indigenous people, including Difang and his wife, toured Europe in 1989. Enigma cashed in on its hit while Difang and the Ami people got nothing.

The Enigma song was also used to promote the 1998 Olympic Summer Games in Atlanta.

Difang went on to sue the group's record label, a case that was eventually settled out-of-court in the singer's favor, and to record for the first time in his life the Ami folk songs that he had been singing in connection with traditional tribal festivities.

His first album, Circle of Life, which was released in 1998, mixed traditional Ami music with elements of pop music and included the stolen tune ''Elders Drinking Song'' both in its pop and original versions.

The album was also released in Japan and other countries. His second album, Amis, was released in 1999 and a third CD, Across the Yellow Earth, followed in 2000.

Difang, who spoke Japanese and his native Ami language but no Mandarin, also toured Japan in December of 1998 to promote his Circle of Life album, which made it to the top of the World Music Chart in Tokyo.

The success of Difang, who always wore traditional Ami dress, helped spark great international interest in aboriginal music from Taiwan and boost the careers of other singers from the island's ethnic minorities.