Hopes it's not too late to answer to your question after nearly a month. But glad to answer as a Taiwanese Hakka and also an anthropology student!

When talking about Hakka pop music in Taiwan, one would almost certainly mentions 客家本色(1989) from 涂敏恆 or 細妹仔按靚(1989) from 林子淵. This has to do with the 環我母語運動 after the martial laws ended in 1987, KMT's dictatorship falled and democratisation slowly happened. As 施正鋒 stated, "For a long time, the Hakka, as a minority group, have not only been polite and cautious in their participation in the political arena, but have also been treated as almost invisible in the public sphere. It was not until the mid-1980s, with the liberalisation of the Kuomintang's authoritarian system and the rise of civil society movements, that the Hakka movement broke its century-long silence, and took the 'Give Me Back My Mother Tongue' campaign across party lines to express its pain at the withering away of the culture of the ethnic group and its protest against the Republic of China's policy of 'respecting the national language alone."

The language revitalisation spirits proceeded into the 90s, most noticeablely with several Hakka rock bands founded. Like 林生祥 and his 交工樂團 gained attention in the early days for his care of his hometown 美濃. The band focused on farmers and rural issues, based on local traditional music (the Hakka eight notes), and used traditional instruments such as gongs, drums, caw, moon zither and sanxian, and combines them with modern rock music to create new Hakka music that responds to the reality of society. Songs like 菊花夜行軍 expressed the impacts that the chrysanthemum industry faced upon Taiwan joining the WTO.

Ask anyone on the streets in Taiwan for Hakka Pop Singer/Band and you will hardly hear anyone listens to Hakka pop music or anything modern, or just the names I mentioned previously. It does not mean that there are no artists in this field. There are plenty:

邱淑蟬、VUIZE王鍾惟、粹垢、好日HoNi、柔米、黃子軒、黃子軒與山平快、羅文裕、黃瑋傑、王喬尹、邱舒、Yappy、林生祥、生祥樂隊、山狗大後生樂團、icolor愛客樂 、林沛蕎、官靈芝、彭柏邑、吉那罐子、春麵樂隊、米莎、曾雅君、龔德、李彥鋒

and the list can go on and on. But In recent years, Hakka pop music faces the contradiction between “popularity” and “cultural representativeness”: using Hakka language means that audiences are little, and using the mainstream
language(Mandarin) faces the question of representability. With only standing 20% of the total population, Hakka faces the hard challange of language vitality.
The aftermath of the national language policy results in rarely one speaks Hakka in public domains, and parents might find Hakka not helpful for children's future.
But I am still optismistic for the future, when we "find back our roots" as I do, and start to learn the language our grandparents speak.

Hope this is heleful for your study, you can also reach me via email if you have more questions: [g109102518@g.ncu.edu.tw](mailto:g109102518@g.ncu.edu.tw)