Last month the Marianas lost one of its most influential musical pioneers with the passing of Tun Candido “Candy” Babauta Taman. Tun Candy was born to a CHamoru mother from Sumay, Guam and a Carolinian father from Saipan with roots in Chuuk. Across his life he worked to promote and develop a Marianas musical sound as well as cultural consciousness.

Growing up in Saipan in the 1950s, Tun Candy was surrounded by CHamoru music, Carolinian music, Hawaiian music in the community, as well as American country western and rock music on the radio. In 1965, he heard a group of high-school-age CHamorus from Guam playing in Saipan called the Kaskells. He was inspired to follow them back to Guam and learn more about playing music professionally. Upon returning to Saipan he began to play music publicly, performing covers of American country, rock and later disco songs.

In 1975, Tun Candy would join another CHamoru music icon Frank “Bokongo” Pangelinan to form the band Local Breed. Although they originally played covers of American songs, with more and more requests for CHamoru language music the group transitioned to become Tropic Sette the following year. Their album “Palasyon Rico” would blend traditional CHamoru and Carolinan songs with new genres and sounds coming from the United States.

In the 1980s, Tun Candy would also be a part of another pioneering musical group from the CNMI, Chamolinian. In songs like the 8-minute long “Mount Pagan” Tun Candy brought the traditional art of storytelling and poetic recounting of important events which was being lost across the Marianas, into the chronicling of the eruption of Mount Pagan in 1981 and the people of the island evacuating to safety.

Tun Candy would go on to record countless more CHamoru songs both in collaborating with others as well as solo. Across the decades he showed himself to be a tireless advocate for the CHamoru and Carolinian languages and the reunification of the Marianas. In 2014, he was awarded an honorary degree in Micronesian Traditional Knowledge by the University of Guam, for all his work in helping to preserve CHamoru and Carolinian language and music.

Tun Candy passed away in June 2023 at the age of 75.

U såga gi minahgong.