Album marks folk group's return with MESSAGE of HOPE

The popular folk music group band Yi People released their first album in 10 years, Poems of Jidi Majia, on Oct 27. To mark the event a music and poetry session was held in Beijing on the same day. In the capital's Zhizhu Temple, dedicated to Tibetan Buddhism, with a history of nearly 600 years, their music echoed off the ancient wooden walls with a new message stressing the importance of originality.

The band first presented three singles Mom, Brother and Tao in tune with their brisk performing style. After going behind the screen to change, they returned wearing traditional Yi ethnic costumes to perform singles from the new album. The plain dark background and humble settings are intended to "give the audience a ritual of bathing in the great wilderness where the Yi people have resided for centuries". Jaba Asan, a representative of young Yi musicians, came to liven up the scene by reciting the poem Black Rhapsody to pay tribute to the Yi poet Jidi Majia and the beauty of Yi culture.

Poems of Jidi Majia is the first experimental music album by Yi People that combines traditional ancient Yi folk songs, chanting and tunes. The band spent a decade in creating the new album with all the lyrics adapted from Jidi's poems, marking their creation shift from the previous pop style since their debut 25 years ago.

Jidi, vice-chairman of the Chinese Writers' Association, is a Yi poet whose poems run parallel with the abundant and mysterious images and emotions from the Yi culture and traditions. In his poems, Jidi connects the world of the sun, stars, rivers, ancestors and gods with the present time and space in a seemingly surreal way. He also projects the overall imagination and concerns about the destiny of mankind and the nation in his own poetry. His poems have been translated into nearly 400-odd languages and dialects.

Unlike traditional music, this album focuses on poems that are visual in the poet's early works.

"Poetry provides us with infinite thinking potential. We are standing on the shoulders of poetry and going further to feel the development of a nation. Music adds an atmosphere that allows us to realize poetry comes from ancient times, but avant-garde at the same time," says the lead singer Qubi Habu.

Using a mixture of Chinese and Western musical instruments－rattles, mouth strings, pipa, French trumpets and hand discs, the band made experimental attempts in singing as well by adding a rap song in one of the new singles Yi People. Rap, that is, not in the traditional sense, but as if whispering in a breathy voice.

"It is the language of the Yi people. This album is experimental in instruments, singing, and arrangement. Maybe everyone will be surprised when they listen to it the first time, it will be okay the second time, and they will like it the third time,"Qubi says.

"There is an old saying among the Yi people that poetry is the salt of our language. Language itself is already very important, and poetry is the essence. In Yi civilization, weddings and funerals have a tradition of counterpart poetry. This kind of improvisation requires a deep reserve for art creativity," says Jidi, explaining the importance of poetry to the Yi people.

"Poetry needs to be spread through music. In fact, in the ancient times of the Yi people, poetry and songbooks cannot be separated. The earliest poets were priests, who connected heaven and Earth through singing and various rituals.

"From the perspective of literature, any kind of art will bring many wonderful things to everyone in the form of its original voice, but also because it is connected with the spiritual source of its birth, and at the same time it targets the reality of life. It has a certain contemporariness across time and space. The culture of the Yi people is very pure and respectful to the gods and nature, and the songs made by the Yi people are the same. Our early works are singing about the environment that the individual perceives. Looking at it now, it brings about our nostalgia, and it feels like a good time lingering in the singing."

If the band's previous songs were more behind the facade of beautiful nostalgia, more ethnic and spiritual contents are injected into their new album, such as the following lyrics: Who has seen the funeral of the eagle, on the cliff, or, the height of the formidable waterfall, the hammer of fate, the only ceremony, the nail is sent to the dome.

"When selecting songs, we believe it is not necessarily the most classic poems, but to pay attention to the atmosphere and the whole picture of the poetry," Qubi says.

Yi People was created in 1995 and all three members are of Yi ethnicity. In 2000, their first album Made by Yi People 1, won numerous awards. But there has been little news of them in the past 10 years. Qubi says the band was popular a dozen years ago, and with the compact work schedule they had to be on TV almost every day.

"I was very tired. So, I calmed down to create. We haven't been idle for the past 10 years either. In addition to music creation, I held art exhibitions, which were quite fulfilling. Later by chance, I was able to cooperate with Jidi Majia and wrote my 20 years of experiences and reflections on life in the songs. This is my biggest gain," he says.

In addition to the new album, another album will be released soon with traits drawn from their rock music creation. The launch of Poems by Jidi Majia represents the return of the Yi People to the music scene. Their old song Beautiful Girl went viral recently on Chinese short video platforms including TikTok. Qubi says the longevity of music and the ability to be sung by everyone is the greatest comfort for a musician.

"People cannot always stand on the cusp of the storm. I am also looking for a path that suits me and then continue to move forward, making music that I like, making music with my conscience, and living with my conscience," he says.

The music premiere in Zhizhu Temple is also part of the music event Echoes Within Ancient Walls that selects ancient buildings including the renowned Confucius Temple and the Bell and Drum Towers as performing venues. The publisher of this album, Stallion Era, says they intend to include more folk music and world music into their promotion, and look forward to having intangible cultural heritage continue to vibrate on the front stage. With the pandemic continuing to cause havoc across the globe, they hope this album will bring more poetry and power to music lovers.