Mr.Kuo Ying-Nan (76) and Mrs.Kuo Hsiuo-Chu (74) from the Ami (Aborigines in Taiwan) recently learned, that they unknowingly had joined Enigma in 1993, however, without having been asked or without getting a fair share of the profit. Enigma used parts of the Kuo's music (recorded in Paris, 1988) to fancify their "Return to Innocence". The Western MTV audience was led to believe, the music clip was sung by some Indians in some tropical jungle.
1997/08/21: Today I saw a commercial from Ferrero on TV (Germany) in which aboriginal music from Taiwan was used to "exotify" their Nutella chocolate spread.
You find the Kuos' "weeding and paddyfield songs" in "Polyphonies vocales des aborigines de Taiwan", a French CD from the INEDIT series distributed by Aufidis under no. W26001. They took it from Firstophone FM6010 (and recording MGM).
Enigma payed 60000 Francs to INEDIT. The Chinese Folk Arts Foundation received 15000 Francs from INEDIT (Paris). There where also some payments (not to the Kuos) from CNN (see their page linking to this page), who used the recording in a commercial for the Olympic games. CNN now wants to interview the Kuos. Quote from the lyrics:
Friends, we undertake this difficult task with joy,
so that we may live off the fruits of our labours.
Seemingly they may not. Others however have an undeversedly good time with these fruits.
Goetz Kluge 1996/07/03, 1996/08/22, 1997/09/20
Hello all,
I read the Taiwan news today to find an article about a "76-year-old aboriginal rice farmer from Taiwan" whose voice is heard on CNN in a commercial for the 1996 Olympic Games. This man's name is Kuo Ying-nan (Lifwan--Amis name). He is from Taitung county.
It turns out that he and a group of singers called the Amis Great Singers Group are planning a tour of the United States. The name of the tour is "Taiwan aboriginal music hails from Isle to Olympics". I have been working on coordinating the tour of the United States since I returned from Taiwan where I met Lifwan and the other artists last summer when I was doing a research project.
If any of you readers in the United States are interested in having a performance in your city, please let me know. Right now we are talking about starting the US tour around Sept. 21. The Japan tour is set to begin on Oct. 25. The group has performed in Taipei last year as well as in Taitung numerous times.
The music is traditional Amis songs with dancing. The melody (and Lifwan's voice) from one song was "sampled" by the French rock group Enigma on a popular CD relaesed in 1993. The song became Enigma's biggest hit. But no mention is made in the CD of the singer whose voice and song contributed to the melody and arrangement of the piece. Lifwan heard his own voice on the radio one day in Taitung, much to his surprise. It turns out that an ethnomusicologist had made a recording some years ago and submitted his recording to a museum in France. The members of Enigma found the recording in the museum library and credited the museum with providing the recording. As strange as this may seem, there was no breaking of international law in this case.
So far I have been working on arranging a United States tour by contacting people in the Taiwanese community accross the nation. There is also interest among specialists in music (ethnomusicologists, anthropologists), specialists in Southeast Asia (anthropologists), and people who enjoy hearing varieties of music of the world (the "world music" scene). If anyone on this list is interested in more information about having the group tour their city, please contact me by e-mail (and include in you subject heading "Amis Great Singers". If there is more dialogue about what issues this case raises, I will be interested in further discussion on the newsgroup.
Christian Anderson
hbar3009@dewey.csun.edu
(310)998-3017 phone
(310)998-3013 fax