Outstanding in Her Field: Singer–Songwriter–Farmer Ilid Kaolo Lives at Her Own Pace

In 2012, when she was already 37, there were still not many people who knew Ilid Kaolo. But at the Golden Melody Awards in that year, Ilid—who only began writing songs at the age of 33—brought home three prizes. Unlike most celebrity singers, she is more immediately recognizable by her voice than by her face: It’s a genteel voice that has a light, airy, laid-back feeling. It has a tone that says she understands the pace and tension generated by modern life, and that then takes the edge off that lifestyle.

She remembers her performance at the Golden Melody Awards very vividly. She had never before sung in front of so many people. When she started out, she was tense and her voice reflected that. But then she gave a gentle smile, and realized that she might never again in her life have the opportunity to stand on the stage of the Taipei Arena. “Since I’m here,” she thought, “I might as well give it my best shot!” Carried along by the music, her voice took off.

Ilid won three Golden Melody Awards with her first album, Carefree Life. Her husband Chen Guanyuu, the album’s producer, is the most indispensible person in her life. (courtesy of Ilid Kaolo)

Singing her own songs

“It’s relaxing, therapeutic, it helps me de-stress….” It is words to this effect that Ilid hears most often from her fans as they describe how they feel when they hear her sing. But her life prior to hitting the big time was not so idyllic. In fact, before her first album Carefree Life was written, she was on a soul-searching journey, having left Taipei, where she had lived for many years, to return to Hualien.

Compared to many other songwriters, Ilid was not the kind of person who from a young age was completely absorbed by music and knew even then what she wanted to do in life. Back in 2008 when she put out the first song that she had written herself, she was only half-heartedly committed to a career in music.

Ilid got her start in music at age 22, when she heard that the Formosa Aboriginal Song and Dance Troupe was holding auditions, and, without giving it much thought, signed up. After Ilid left the troupe, she sang in a folk music restaurant in Yilan for two years. From there she was invited by Chen Yon-lon and Suming Rupi to join Wild Fire Music. All seemed to be going well but for one thing: She was always singing other people’s songs.

Her close friend singer Panai Kusui, as well as her then-boyfriend (and now husband) Chen Guanyuu, encouraged her to write her own songs. “If you don’t have your own material, your own style, no one will remember you,” says Ilid. However, while it’s pretty easy to sing bubblegum pop-song covers, writing your own stuff is much more difficult. Finding it hard to make a niche for herself, Ilid wavered about her future, and even considered going into fashion design, which is what she studied in school.

One day she was chatting on the phone with her mother and said, half joking, half exasperated, “I might as well just go back home and farm.” Little did she suspect then that her jest would become reality. In 2008, she and Chen Guanyuu moved to Fenglin in Hualien County, aiming to reinvent themselves as “singer–farmers”—continuing to sing professionally but also tending their fields.

It was not a smooth transition. In those early days, Ilid’s heart and mind were still in the city, and she routinely spent half the night surfing the Internet, living in a virtual urban world. Ironically, she got hooked on the online game “Happy Farm.” She laughs: “I was unwilling to go out and cultivate actual vegetables, but online I would run into other people’s virtual fields to steal theirs.”

Since she stayed in bed every day until the sun was high in the sky, it’s no surprise that her mother called her a “phony farmer.” In contrast, Chen adapted very quickly, and it wasn’t long before he was living the early-to-bed, early-to-rise life of a genuine tiller of the soil. Nonetheless, after a year and a half of acclimatization in Fenglin, Ilid was ready to go all in on the rural lifestyle. In 2010 the couple decided to move to Nan’ao in Yilan County, where they continued their farming ways, and Ilid finally felt comfortable physically, psychologically, and spiritually.

Then things really started happening. First, the quiet and contented days in the fields provided Ilid with torrents of inspiration, and melodies just popped into her head one after another. These culminated in the album Carefree Life, which came out in December of 2011.

Next came the birth of her daughter, Terefo, who entered the world in October of 2012.

Yoko Ho, head of marketing at Chord & Major, a headphone company that Ilid has long been working with, says, “If you were to ask Ilid to prioritize the three roles of singer–songwriter, mother, and farmer, singer–songwriter would probably be last.” Ilid spent almost all of her time looking after her daughter, with only occasional free moments to jot down flashes of inspiration. While this meant that it took longer to come up with the material for a new album (A Beautiful Moment, 2015), she enjoyed the luxury of letting life gradually incubate her ideas into mature songs.

Ilid won three Golden Melody Awards with her first album, Carefree Life. Her husband Chen Guanyuu, the album’s producer, is the most indispensible person in her life. (courtesy of Ilid Kaolo)

Meetings through music

Since her second album came out, Ilid has been constantly moving, doing performances and promotional events. During her concerts, she and Chen Guanyuu explain in detail the stories behind the works. Of these stories, there are two that she tells without fail.

The first is about their completely unexpected success with crowdfunding. At the end of 2014, they thought that they had enough material and that the time was right to go into the studio. But when they looked in their bankbooks, they found out there was virtually nothing left there. They eventually wound their brains around to crowdfunding platforms. Initially setting their goal at NT$350,000, they hit that number in a lightning-fast two days, and by the time the fundraising period had ended, they found themselves with nearly NT$1 million. Ilid was delighted at the result, but even more she realized that these contributions constituted a trust.

Besides this connection with their fans to get the recording process started, it took another encounter of a more personal sort—though no less surprising—to finish it. The final song to be recorded, “A Graceful Lady,” not only reconnected Chen Guanyuu with a long-lost friend, it also showed how sheer luck can play a vital role in the creative process.

After the chords and lyrics for “A Graceful Lady” were finished, Chen thought to himself that it would make a great blues song. But they didn’t have the right musicians for the sound he had in mind, so they put off making a definitive recording. It was then that Fate took a hand.

During a small concert in Nan’ao that Chen put on for some young Atayal artists, a long-lost old classmate showed up. It turned out that this friend had been following Chen on Facebook, and decided to come to the concert to chew the fat about old times. Moreover, he happened to bring a friend of his, a Japanese guy.

The house was rockin’ during the show, and this Japanese friend, a guitarist, asked if he could jump in on a song and just improvise something. He started shredding, and the music just blew everybody away! Only after a formal introduction did Chen find out that this was Shun Kikuta, a world-class guitarist who has played with such blues icons as B.B. King and Koko Taylor.

Kikuta was already a big fan of Ilid’s music, and had always wanted to get the chance to work with her. Seeing this blues-ax master just serendipitously materialize was electrifying for Ilid and Chen, and they can’t help but exclaim, “Even now, it just seems unbelievable that it all fell together like that!”

Ilid won three Golden Melody Awards with her first album, Carefree Life. Her husband Chen Guanyuu, the album’s producer, is the most indispensible person in her life. (courtesy of CNA News)

A woman of grace and dignity

The completion of this song was the final punctuation mark for A Beautiful Moment. But for Ilid, who is an Amis indigenous person, it has an importance and meaning even greater than that. It is a work that Ilid composed in honor of a woman named Kikuko Yatauyungana (Chinese name Gao Juhua).

Who is this woman? Most people have little or no idea. But her father, Uyongu Yatauyungana (1908–1954), of the Alishan Tsou tribe, was a most remarkable figure in the history of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. Uyongu was the first indigenous person in the era of Japanese rule to attend an institution of higher education (he graduated from a teacher’s college). A musician, philosopher, and educator, he was identified by the Japanese regime as an elite individual destined for a bright future.

Tragically, after World War II, when the Nationalist government took over in Taiwan, Uyongu was framed for corruption because he had given shelter to then Tainan County chief Yuan Guoqin, who was seen as a Communist. Uyongu died in prison as a victim of the White Terror.

There were in fact quite a number of Aboriginal intellectuals like him at that time, and their disappearance was a tremendous loss for Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. When Ilid looks at the current condition of Aboriginal peoples, she often thinks, “If those people had remained alive, things could be a lot different today.”

Yet there are a lot of Aboriginal people who don’t know anything of Uyongu’s story. Ilid herself only first heard about him after she joined Wild Fire Music and performed one of his compositions. Later, for a performance by the Formosa Aboriginal Song and Dance Troupe of the work Memories of Azalea Mountain, Ilid went to Alishan (Mt. Ali) to do some field research, and there she met Uyongu’s eldest daughter Kikuko.

On a later occasion, Ilid arranged to visit Kikuko in her home. The itinerary got derailed, and Ilid arrived three or four hours late. But Kikuko didn’t have the slightest air of indignation or irritation; she simply said gently, “Younger Sister, come in.” Afterwards, as she was traveling back down from Alishan, Ilid couldn’t stop thinking about Kikuko’s grace and calm, and she decided to write a song for her.

Ilid says that Kikuko’s refined and kind manner is especially remarkable given that her life has been filled with hardship. Ilid doesn’t elaborate, but simply says: “It’s been very rough for her.... If you get the chance, you should ask her to tell you herself.”

The fact is that after the death of Uyongu, the entire family was blacklisted. As the eldest daughter, it was up to Kikuko to support the family, so she learned music on her own, quit school, and started working as a singer in an American military club. During that period, the secret police continued to harass them and would periodically show up at her family home.

“Fate tried to crush her into the ground, but she has always kept herself standing upright, dignified, and graceful.” This is why steadfastness and the triumph of the spirit in the face of adversity is the central theme of Ilid’s song about Kikuko.

In fact, if you pay attention you will find many clues in her music about a variety of social concerns, such as the importance of respecting Nature. But Ilid’s style is not to shout from a soapbox. “If people get it, then they get it. If they don’t, then anyway they can just appreciate the music!”

Ilid’s fans clamored for a new album for four years, and now they are already asking when the next recording will come out. The artist just laughs and says, “I could come out with a new album every year or two. But that Ilid wouldn’t be the real Ilid!” 

Ilid’s voice is light, agile, and genteel, fitting perfectly with the sound of a softly resonating guitar. The photo shows her during a live performance.

It was a difficult transition for Ilid to return to her hometown of Hualien and take up farming. Ironically, the rural lifestyle has provided her with a rich harvest of creative inspiration. (courtesy of Ilid Kaolo)

It was a difficult transition for Ilid to return to her hometown of Hualien and take up farming. Ironically, the rural lifestyle has provided her with a rich harvest of creative inspiration. (courtesy of Ilid Kaolo)

Happy, inspirational, calming, sorrowful…. Every song written by Ilid Kaolo has been incubated through her experience of life as she grows day in and day out.

There was a four-year gap between Ilid’s first album, Carefree Life, in 2011 and her second, A Beautiful Moment, in 2015. But today she has shed the ambivalence she once felt about a career in music and is determined to keep plowing ahead.