A-Mei

Kulilay Amit (Chinese: 張惠妹; pinyin: Zhāng Huìmèi; born 9 August 1972), better known by her stage name A-Mei, is a Taiwanese singer and record producer of Puyuma descent. Born as Amit Kulilay in eastern Taiwan, she made her debut in 1996. A leading figure of the Mandopop music scene since the mid-1990s, A-Mei is regarded for breaking ground for Taiwanese indigenous peoples and being a voice for LGBT rights and gender equality. She has been given the moniker "Queen of Mandopop" and the "Pride of Taiwan." Her career longevity, resilience, artistry, and versatility have established her as a pop culture icon in the Sinophone world.

Born and raised in Beinan, Taitung, Taiwan, A-Mei moved to Taipei at age 20 in 1992. In 1996, she released her debut studio album, Sisters, which saw major commercial success and sold over a million copies in Taiwan. Her sophomore record, Bad Boy (1997), found even greater success, eventually becoming the country's best-selling album overall. Her follow up releases—Holding Hands (1998), Can I Hug You, Lover? (1999) and Regardless (2000)—received critical and commercial acclaim, with the first two albums also selling well over a million copies. A cross-strait relations controversy caused her to experience a decline in sales in 2004; she would later experience a resurgence in 2006 with her album I Want Happiness?.

Her albums Truth (2001), Amit (2009), and Faces of Paranoia (2014) each won her a Golden Melody Award for Best Mandarin Female Singer, making her one of the singers who won the category the most times. Having sold over 50 million records, A-Mei is the best-selling female artist in Taiwanese music history. In 2002, Time named her one of the 20 most influential people in Asia. In 2017, she was included in the "Charity Heroes List" by the Asian edition of Forbes. She has embarked on eight concert tours since her debut, with the Utopia World Tour (2015–2017) drawing over 2.5 million people.

A-Mei was born on 9 August 1972 in the Tamalakaw tribe (belonging to the Puyuma) in Beinan, Taitung, Taiwan. Her Puyuma-language name is Kulilay Amit, alternatively transliterated Gulilai Amit. She was the seventh child in a family of nine children. During her childhood A-Mei's family was impoverished, making it increasingly difficult to raise so many offspring. To support the family, the father originally wanted to give A-Mei and her younger sister Saya Chang to relatives for adoption. It was A-Mei's mother who took them to hide deep in the mountains to escape the fate of being adopted. Despite avoiding the fate of being separated from her family, A-Mei's upbringing was still quite difficult due to always being short on money. Although A-Mei couldn't receive formal training in music and stage performances, she showed her love for stage singing performances since she was a child. Like most Native Taiwanese people, she was exposed to tribal music very early on. Her mother used to record herself singing, then play it back on tape for her daughters to hear. A-Mei had always been fascinated by music, saying that she was addicted to the radio and would rush to watch the late night music programs that introduced her to English songs when she was a child. Oftentimes she summoned the children in the village and persuaded everyone to use flashlights to create "stage lighting effects" for her. In addition to her talent in music, A-Mei was also very good at sports. In elementary school, under the careful guidance of coach Shi Shunxiong, she earned a second-degree black belt and once represented her school in a taekwondo competition.

In 1992 A-Mei left her hometown of Taitung for the first time to work in a restaurant and sell clothes at a roadside stand in Taipei. She first connected to the entertainment business by joining the televised "Five Lights Singing Contest" on TTV Main Channel in 1992 after encouragement from her father. She made it all the way through to the finals but lost in the final round. She was disappointed and was almost ready to give up interest in music competitions. A-Mei's father then told her, "You definitely can sing, and you perform songs beautifully. Why don't you enter the competition again to show that you have a talent for music?" So, encouraged by the kind words from her father, she attended the singing contest again in 1993. Her performances enchanted the judges and she was crowned champion the following year. Unfortunately her father didn't live to see her victory due to him succumbing to his illness, leaving A-Mei devastated. Years later in 2009 when she released an album for the first time under her real name Amit, she sung the song "Disappear (掉了)" which expresses how dearly she misses him. After winning the Taiwan TV Five Lights Awards program, he was invited by Japan Asia Airways to go to Japan to perform at the "World Music Tour" in Tokyo.

After her father's death, A-Mei struggled to recall her passion for music until 1995 when she began to sing in local pubs with a rock band called "Relax" which was formed by her musician cousin. Her pub performance impressed Taiwanese music producer Chang Yu-sheng and Chang Hsiao-yen, the head of Taiwanese record label Forward Music at the time; she signed a recording deal with Forward Music in March 1996.

After she signed a recording deal with Forward Music she made an appearance on Chang Yu-sheng's album, Red Passion, which was released on 12 July 1996, where they sang a duet titled "The One Who Loved Me Most, Hurt Me The Most (最愛的人傷我最深)." In November 1996, when A-Mei was invited to sing "I'm a Dreamer on Air (空中的夢想家)," the theme song for Taiwan's UFO Radio station, she again drew attention from the public. On 13 December 1996, A-Mei released her debut album Sisters, which she made under the tutelage of Chang. Originally, the head honchos at Forward Music worried that A-Mei's aboriginal heritage would have a negative impact on the album's sales due to discrimination against aboriginal people still being widespread at the time. In spite of this, A-Mei still emphasized to the media that she was from an aboriginal background and was the very first Taiwanese mainstream pop star to proudly flaunt her aboriginal identity. On the contrary, the album Sisters became a runaway success. The album topped the Taiwan IFPI chart for nine consecutive weeks and sold a total of 1.21 million copies in Taiwan and four million in Asia. The sales result for Sisters surprised Forward Music, since they had no expectations of it being so well-received, who even forgot to sign her up for the 8th Golden Melody Awards (the Sinophone equivalent to the Grammy Awards). The songs on Sisters such as "You Don't Want Anything (原來你什麼都不要)," "Released (解脫)," "Cut Love (剪愛)" and the titular track enjoyed hefty radio airplay throughout the Sinophone world. On the album's titular track, Chang invited A-Mei's mother, sisters and other relatives to participate in the chorus singing and added Puyuma musical elements to make the song more culturally enriching. The outstanding sales of Sisters helped it become the fourth best-selling album in Taiwan overall. It won the top ten albums of the Chinese Musicians Exchange Association in 1997, and eventually was placed at No. 10 in the selection of the "200 Best Taiwanese Popular Music Albums."

On 17 May 1997, Billboard Magazine declared A-Mei Asia's most popular singer. On 7 June 1997, she released her second studio album titled Bad Boy. For this record Chang was still highly involved in the songwriting and production department. Bad Boy became A-Mei's second consecutive album to top the Taiwan IFPI chart for nine weeks, and sold 1.38 million copies, making it the most sold album in Taiwanese music history. Additionally it sold an excess of six million copies throughout Asia, making A-Mei one of the most powerful and sought-after celebrities in the continent. The album Bad Boy spawned numerous hit singles such as the title track, "Can't Cry (哭不出來)," "Whenever I Think About You (一想到你呀)," "Dancing Alone (一個人跳舞)" and "Listen to the Sea (聽海)." They all have now been regarded as modern-day classics and are still receiving heavy rotation and being sung by contestants on televised major music competitions to this day. A-Mei performed songs from the album on her A-Mei Live In Concert 1998 concert tour the following year. Bad Boy earned her two Golden Melody Award nominations for Album of the Year and Best Mandarin Female Singer. However, tragedy struck five months after the album's release; her manager Chang died on 12 November 1997, at age 31, after falling into a coma for 24 days due to a car crash that occurred on 20 October 1997. During Chang's stay in the hospital, A-Mei visited him many times. At that time, to pay tribute to Chang who was dying, she released the CD single "Listen to You, Listen to Me (聽你聽我)." On 29 December 1997, she released the innovative album You Make Me Free Make Me Fly!, which featured the songs that were to be performed on her upcoming tour. The album was another hit, shipping 800,000 units in Taiwan and four million throughout Asia.