READING ACTIVITY #2

Over the past decade, combining traditional music from Africa, Latin America, and Asia with Western pop2 and jazz has become commonplace’s but for a singer of traditional music, having your voice on a hit record4 does not necessarily make you any money. Take the case of Lee Fong Gwo, a Taiwanese rice farmer. His performance of a traditional song was recorded and later sold without his knowledge to a group of German pop musicians. The German musicians used the farmer's voice in a song that became a big hit. AII this has stirred an interesting debate: Who owns traditional music and should Lee Fong Gwo be paid for his performance? 

Frank Koller, Reporter: For thousands of years, Lee Fong Gwo's family has made a living growing rice in the mountains of southern Taiwan. Gwo is an Ami; his ancestors came to Taiwan from the islands of Southeast Asia long before Chinese immigrants arrived from the mainland. Now 76, Lee Fong Gwo remembers learning to sing in these fields as a young boy. 

Lee Fong Gwo, Ami Singer: [through a translator] Our water buffaloes needed someone to take care of them, and that was my job until I was 12. In those days, I'd hear my whole family singing together as they worked in the rice paddies,o and that's how I first learned the songs. 

Frank Koller: A few miles away in the town of Taitung, you still see traces of traditional Ami culture in Lee Fong Gwo's garage. We spent the afternoon sitting on small plastic chairs around a woks fiIIed with burning charcoal until Lee Fong Gwo asked me if I'd like to hear him and his wife sing one of the old songs. 

Lee Fong Gwo and, his wife sing a traditional song which fadesinto the pop song "Return to Innocence" 

This song, "Return to Innocence," was recorded by the German band Enigma in 1994. "Return to Innocence" sold more than five million copies around the world that year, staying on the pop charts for more than six months. The man whose unique chanting starts and ends "Return to Innocence," Lee Fong Gwo, was never asked to be on the record and never received a cent -and that was never supposed to happen, says Professor Hsu Chang-Wei, an ethnomusicologist at Taiwan University. 

In 1987, with support from the Taiwanese government and the French Ministry of Culture, Hsu arranged for a group of Ami singers led by Lee Fong Gwo to visit Europe for a series of concerts. 

Professor Hsu Chang-Wei, Ethnomusicologist, Taiwan University: [through a translator] In France, academics really liked the music and suggested that the performance be recorded. At that time, it was very rare to have Taiwanese ethnic music performed outside of Taiwan. It was agreed that the Ami singer could be recorded and published in France, but just one CD for academic research purposes only. Frank Koller: The problem was, no one ever asked the Ami singers. In 1992, the musicians of Enigma heard the CD and purchased-from the French Ministry of Culture-what they assumed were the complete rightsl2 to use Lee Fong Gwo's voice. Enigma paid $6,000. The problem was, once again, no one asked Lee Fong Gwo.