Amami Shimauta

Amami shimauta is the folk song tradition of the Amami Islands of Kagoshima in Japan, sung in the local Ryukyuan dialects to the three-stringed jabisen. Its melodies favour a distinctive raised-fourth scale and a flexible vocal delivery rich in ornament, quite unlike the brighter sound of Okinawan song to the south. Shimauta covers labour songs, love songs and narrative pieces such as the island-hopping "Asabana Bushi", preserved at village song contests and gatherings. In the 2000s the style reached national audiences through island-born singers *Hajime Chitose* and *Kousuke Atari*, whose pop careers carried shimauta's melisma into the charts.