For Kimbo, singing has always been as natural as breathing. A piano has often provided the accompaniment, but when that has been lacking, a keyboard has sufficed. For him, singing need be no more complicated than that.

From Tai­pei to Tai­tung, whether in the mountains or at the seaside, the furrow-browed, broad-shouldered Kimbo has always cut something of a solitary figure on the stage as he takes a seat and a sip of beer. Then, with his fingers running across the keys, a deep voice comes pouring out, boundless like the Pacific Ocean.

After the failure of his first marriage, Kimbo has found new happiness with his second wife.

His earliest memories of singing begin in the hometown he left at the age of 11—Jia­lan Village, about 30 minutes by car from Tai­tung City—where his grandmother used to chant traditional indigenous tunes handed down through the generations.

Kimbo is known today as a “roaming poet” and “the father of indigenous folk music,” but the pretty-sounding sobriquets have been preceded by years of drifting—in body, in spirit, and in personal identity.

Kimbo’s father, a member of the Pu­yuma tribe, worked at a police station on Mt. Dawu in Tai­tung. While there he fell in love with the daughter of a local chieftain from the Pai­wan tribe. The pair married and raised six children. Kimbo was number five. With the encouragement of an older brother, he left Jia­lan Village at 11 and headed to northern Taiwan to enroll in Tam­kang Middle School.

The brother, 17 years older than Kimbo and born with a congenital vision impairment, had been sent north years before by missionaries for treatment at a Christian hospital in Yi­lan County. He eventually became a missionary himself, and built the first Christian church in Jia­lan.

In 1962, Tam­kang Middle School adopted a policy of admitting one indigenous student per year from each of the northern, central, southern, and eastern regions of Taiwan without requiring them to take an entrance exam. Kimbo’s older brother persuaded his father to let the boy go north for middle school, and so Kimbo set off barefoot with a pair shoes slung across a shoulder and a suitcase in hand, headed into the unknown behind a brother who could hardly see a thing. After dropping Kimbo off at school, the brother went immediately on his way.

Kimbo made good grades throughout junior and senior high school. He did particularly well in English, and joined the school’s choral and rugby clubs. He tested into the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Taiwan University (NTU), and was recruited to the rugby team. The stress of the intense activity eventually left him prostrate on the field, foaming at the mouth. Only then did he learn that he was prone to epileptic seizures resulting from post-concussion syndrome. Extended rest and medication were prescribed, but he was forced to drop out of university in his third year.

His dropout coincided with the height of US involvement in the Vietnam War. At any time, over 10,000 US servicemen were stationed in Taiwan or here on R&R, and bars were doing a booming business. Youth in Taiwan were all singing American pop hits. Kimbo in 1970 became the house singer at the Columbian embassy coffee shop near the intersection of Zhong­shan North Road and Chang­chun Road. That marked the beginning of his career as a singer. Soon he became acquainted with other musicians who frequented the coffee shop, including Yang Hsien, Wu Chu-chu, and Lee Shuang-tze. Lee would go on to kick off the folk music movement in Taiwan.

“One evening after performing “Reminiscing,” a folk song by Chen Da from deep southern Taiwan, Lee asked me to sing a Pu­yuma song. I thought for a bit and sang “Beautiful Rice,” which I only half-remembered. All of a sudden I realized that I could hardly sing anything in any language other than English.”

“Beautiful Rice” was composed by Ba­li­wakes, who had been a classmate of Kimbo’s father. Kimbo used to hear his father mangle the song all the time, and it lodged in his memory. It was the first indigenous folk song that Lee had ever heard, and he asked to hear more, so Kimbo began learning songs from other indigenous tribes and composing songs of his own. He describes “Beautiful Rice” as his “ID certificate.”

Born in coffee houses and restaurants, folk songs spread to university campuses and blossomed into a movement. Kimbo and Lee called on singers to “sing either your own songs, or songs handed down from previous generations.”

In 1974, Lee suggested that Kimbo do a “Singing Our Own Songs” concert. The publicity posters were made by hand. The songs included various Pu­yuma and Amis tunes, songs by Chen Da, and “Beautiful Rice.” “Singing Our Own Songs” turned out to be the name of the first folk song concert ever held in Taiwan. It was also Kimbo’s first one-man concert.

After Singer Music handed out the first Golden Rhythm Awards in 1977, folk music gradually morphed into pop, and folk singers came to be packaged as stars. Lee wrote nine songs that year. One of these was “Formosa,” which would become a classic, with lyrics by Liang Jing­feng, a Tam­kang University instructor of German who adapted his lyrics from a poem called Taiwan, by Ms. Chen Xiuxi.

In September of that year, before he had a chance to record “Formosa,” Lee drowned at age 28 while attempting to save a life. As Lee’s funeral approached, Kimbo and T.C. Yang worked day and night to arrange a final version from Lee’s notes. They recorded the song in a restaurant and played it at Lee’s funeral. Featuring a pleasant tune and easily remembered lyrics, the song became a hit. Eventually it became customary to close folk music concerts with a choral rendition of “Formosa” by all the artists at the event. Here are some of the lyrics:

“This beautiful island, our cradle, is a mother’s warm embrace. / Our proud ancestors look on, look over us as we go. / They keep urging us—Don’t forget! Don’t forget! / They keep urging us—Don’t slack for a minute! There’s a virgin land to be opened up!”

Released during the martial law era, “Formosa” was once banned by the authorities for its distinctly nativist flavor, but after martial law was lifted in 1987, the song’s focus on quintessential elements of local scenery—such as water buffalo, rice paddies, banana trees, and yulan magnolia—struck a sympathetic chord in the 1990s as Taiwan society began to attach great importance to all things local. The song’s popularity soared once again.

In 2005, Lin Hwai-min, artistic director of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, invited the Pu­yuma choreographer Bu­la­re­yaung Pa­gar­lava and Kimbo to create a new dance to be called “Formosa, Island the Beautiful.” This dance was Lin’s salute to Kimbo for sticking with his sometimes controversial song for 30 years. With the dance, the song’s iconic status rose still higher.

Kimbo’s first album wasn’t released until 2005, more than 30 years after his appearance on the music scene. The long delay came because, early on in his musical career, the raising of his consciousness triggered by the folk music movement prompted a heightened concern for his fellow indigenous people, prompting a decision to throw himself headlong into the indigenous peoples’ movement.

In 1984, after taking part in rescue work following an explosion at the Hai­shan Coal Mine in Tai­pei County, Kimbo was dismayed at the fact that most of the victims were Aboriginals. Angered at the disadvantaged state of the indigenous peoples, he established the Association for Promoting the Rights of Taiwan Aborigines (APRTA) and began working to get unrecognized tribes included on the official list of Aboriginal groups in Taiwan, and to secure the return of indigenous lands to their rightful owners.

“After getting involved in social movements, my songwriting tapered off, but I did write a song called ‘Why?’ about the tragedy at the Hai­shan Coal Mine.”

“Is singing a form of social activism? I’ve never thought so. I write songs very slowly. Sometimes a single song is a year or two in the making. When I was most heavily involved in the indigenous peoples’ movement, I had practically retired from the music scene.”

The life of activism was a tough path. After losing out in a run for local elective office, he was booted out of the APRTA that he himself had founded. The activists who had taken with him to the streets in the early days had gone on to become government officials, but the indigenous peoples were still as marginalized as ever. The frustration was intense, and he was experiencing frequent health problems.

In career, health, and marriage, things were going wrong.

“My ex-wife and I had dated for seven years before she finally agreed to marry me. In the eighth year we had a baby, but a full year later she still hadn’t registered the child in our household registry. I asked why not, but she never would give a reason.” She did, eventually, come clean—she didn’t want the child branded as an Aborigine.

Kimbo was indignant, exploding to his wife: “A child is not a bag of peanuts that you can carry around and plant wherever the soil is best. If you’re indigenous, you’re indigenous, and there’s no getting around it. Now I find you’ve been looking down your nose at me these last eight years.” Recounting the past, emotion creeps into his voice. At the request of his former in-laws, custody was given to the mother. It was more than 20 years later when father and son next met.

In 1996, with his health on the mend, Kimbo founded an Aboriginal band called Fei­ju­yuen­bao Synec­tics. It marked his return to both music and social activism.

In 1998 the Amis musician Di­fang Duana, working with the assistance of a Belgian producer, recorded an album entitled Circle of Life, which included “Elders’ Drinking Song,” Di­fang’s best-known work. The album was a big seller. Then in 2000 Pu­yuma singers Pur­dur and Sa­mingad both won Golden Melody Awards, thus winning more prominence for indigenous music.

In 2005, Kimbo composed “Pacific Wind,” using music to trace a path back to his early childhood. Despite being a 30-year veteran in music, he burst like a brand-new artist onto the scene, getting nominated for a Golden Melody Award with his very first album. “When I got back into music, I could feel that young people had expectations for me. People mustn’t get down in the dumps for too long, or be too hard on themselves.”

Kimbo says that he and Ban­sa­lang are the first generation of indigenous folk singers to perform within a commercial system. “Pur­dur is in the second generation. And the people in Matzka [an indigenous band from Tai­tung], they’re a younger bunch. I’d say they’re part of a third generation.”

Casually tossing out the names of indigenous singers and placing them in the “family tree,” Kimbo seems almost like a father proudly ticking off the accomplishments of his kids.

Zheng Jie­ren, who has produced albums by both Pur­dur and Kimbo, says, “Kimbo opened up doors for indigenous singers, and after he went through a low period in his life, younger singers opened their arms and helped him back up on stage.”

Having traveled a path from Western songs, to folk, and then indigenous music, Kimbo will occasionally grant requests from audience members to sing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” and other anti-war songs from the 1960s. The American folk singers of an earlier generation had a lasting impact on Kimbo’s music.

“Lots of people call me the father of Taiwan folk music, which just seems totally wrong to me. What about Chen Da? What about Ba­li­wakes? There are so many who went before—those are the true pioneers.”

“I often tell Sa­mingad that she has to go on singing, that two albums are not enough. Music education has ignored indigenous music for too long. Many ethnologists feel that Taiwan is a treasure trove of music. In the past, people hadn’t understood that. If they had, our world of music would have been a much more beautiful place today.”

Comments Zheng Jie­ren: “There is a deep sadness and fullness to his voice. It takes a lot of life experience for a voice like that to develop.”

Today, listening to his In a Flash, one can sense a power in the album’s creator—such freedom, such depth, such unrestrained expression, such emotion. For people from all walks of life in Taiwan, the music of Kimbo contains rays of enlightenment, and traces of the inner self.