朱哲琴:用音乐宣扬民族文化

今天要欣赏到的是她的专辑“黄孩子”，当年她因此片被称为“东方的恩雅”。宽广的空间里，传来一把久远的声音，像是来自天来的靡靡之音，灵性飘逸其间。让人联想起草原上滑落的星星，想起天际边那一片明媚的阳光，想起了大海深处深埋着的深沉与厚实...

Last week we listened to composer He Xuntian's experimental Buddhist music project "Paramita", featuring one song with vocals by Dadawa. This week, we're going to head back to the very start of their famous and unique collaboration.

A fledgling pop singer in the early 1990s, Dadawa was discovered by He Xuntian and He Xunyou.

The two brothers were in search of the perfect voice for their unconventional songs. Someone introduced them to Zhu Zheqing - that was Dadawa's name until she came up with her famous alias - and they gradually found some common ground that allowed them to form a strong team.

The elder brother, He Xunyou, was in charge of the lyrics, and he came up with lines like these:

My shadow on the cob wall says to me, "Look at yourself"/ I look at my reflection in the water basin/ It says, "This is not you"/

My shadow on the cob wall says to me, "This is you"/ I look at my reflection in the pupil of an ox/ It says, "This is not you"/

He Xunyou's lines broke away from those written by his contemporaries.

You do not hear the desperate cries for lost love, a theme exploited by pop songs ad infinitum in the early 1990s-since the taboo of singing about love in China had only recently come to an end.

Nor was there anything like the social sarcasm being bandied about by the new rock-n-roll scene.

The music, composed by He Xuntian, the younger brother, was no less daring or unconventional compared to the lyrics.

An abundance of electronic sounds are employed, yet in refreshing and serene combinations.

Also, you hear a lot of instruments that somehow remain indefinable.

The minimalist melody sometimes gives you the feeling that the singer is humming or chanting words.

Words like these:

As I walked on a street filled with white people/ I saw many blue eyes/ I had no idea that I am a yellow child

As I sat in a family of the yellow people/ I saw many black eyes/ I had no idea that I am a yellow child

As I walked on a mountain top/ where no other man had set foot/ I saw a fluttering flag/ finally/ I know that I am a yellow child

The nationalistic sentiment, however weak, is evident in the writing. It is also evident in the music, which composer He Xuntian managed to infuse with ancient Chinese elements dating back thousands of years.

Dadawa's singing alone is suitable for this unique genre, and perhaps even enhances it.

It's impossible to hear any trace of the pub singer or pop diva she once was. Her calming and precise sound makes her voice appear like an instrument in its own right.

Perhaps that is exactly the quality the He brothers were looking for.

They stopped their hunt for a singer when they came upon Dadawa and spent months chasing the singer, who at that time was trying hard to build her own successful singing career.

She then made a choice that brought about a long on-and-off collaboration with the composer He Xuntian, and unexpected fame as the pioneer "indie" artist in China, a Chinese ambassador of contemporary music, and the first contemporary Chinese diva to achieve worldwide stardom.

"Yellow Children" was a successful album and a wonderful start for Dadawa. She followed it up with the seminal 1995 release "Sister Drum."

From this point on, her career continued on the world stage.

The year 1998 would see the release of "voices From the Sky", her third album.

She then got married, had children, and spend a lot of time travelling and meditating.

In 2006, Dadawa returned with a new album, "Seven Days", with Chinese folk melodies and what she called "Pan-Asian" sounds replacing the Tibetan ones, for which she was nominated for a BBC World Music Award in 2007.

While searching for inspiration in ethnic regions around her homeland, Dadawa has also been commissioned by the UNDP as a goodwill ambassador to protect and revitalize the cultural wealth of ethnic minorities in China.

When asked why she would opt for a life on the road, the musician says that she considers herself a risk-taker.