Birth name: 林生祥 (Lin Sheng-xiang)

Born: November 25, 1971

Birthplace: Kaohsiung County (southern Taiwan)

Lin Sheng-xiang was born in Kaohsiung’s Meinong in 1971 and grew up in that Hakka town. Whenever he recalls his childhood, fresh in his mind is a warm picture of his family sitting around his uncle's stereo and vinyl record player, listening to the albums of Hakka pop music creator Wu Sheng-chih (吳盛智).

During high school, Lin left home to study in Tainan. He later went to Taipei and studied at Tamkang University. During that time, he set up a rock band. At the age of 28, he started the "Labor Exchange Band (交工樂隊)." The word "exchange” or “jiao gong" in southern Taiwan’s Hakka means that when farm work is busy, everyone supports each other by “exchanging work hours” doing things such as cutting rice stalks and harvesting tobacco leaves together.

Since then, he has been a lead singer, composer, as well as guitar and yueqin (moon zither) player. After graduating from university, Lin didn't want to limit his body and mind to a narrow apartment, so he rented a traditional courtyard house in his hometown and found that memories from the courtyard and pastoral life had affected him deeply, evoking in his mind images of labor, body and space. The countryside thus became one of his most important theme of his creations. After the dissolution of the "Labor Exchange Band", he established the "Sheng-Xiang & Band (生祥樂隊)."

Lin wanted to share the music he made with his village folks, but he found that his music could not be accepted by people back in his village, so he began to study and analyze the structure of Hakka bayin, a type of traditional Hakka music, dissembling, combining and integrating it into his musical creations. As a musician, his feet are set on the land of his hometown, but Lin tries to connect Western instruments and Hakka traditional music. Using Hakka folk songs and bayin as his foundation, he has dug deeper and deeper into this field and even learned how to play traditional instruments. He chose to play the yueqin that is usually used in Hengchun folk songs, and mixes it with Minnan (Southern Fujian), Hakka or Pingpu indigenous music elements, creating a unique music that is best called Lin Sheng-xiang style music.

As a farmer's child, and based on his profound life experiences, Lin writes songs with lyrics depicting the rural world and life in his hometown from the perspective of a homesick wanderer. There are also descriptions of the situation of Taiwanese farmers facing social changes. In addition, due to his long-term concern for social movements, Lin's songs show his care and criticism of the social environment. His entire album “Let Us Sing Mountain Songs (我等就來唱山歌)” focuses on the theme of the anti-reservoir construction movement in Meinong.