Artist to Watch: Kalikolehuanani | Maui Native

Summary: I caught up with my tita, hoaaloha, and former dormmate, Kalikolehuanani to talk about her new single Mana o Pauwalu. The song has been gaining radio play on local stations throughout Maui, leaving many music fans wondering, “Who is Kalikolehuanani?” We talked about her inspiration for her latest song, what she learned during lockdown, and how struggling creatives can get “unstuck.”

Produced by: Wahine Action Productions

Who is Kalikolehuanani?

Hawai‘i roots music fans might recognize Kalikolehuananiʻ’s deep, soulful voice from the underground mixtape she recorded with her dormmate, friend, and collaborator Leah Garth in 2004. If you were listening to roots/reggae music in the early 2000s it is likely that you stumbled across a few of their songs. From 2005 to 2009 it seemed as if their music was playing just about everywhere throughout the islands. Once while vacationing on Kaua‘i I heard their song “Green Smoke Flowin” playing over the loud speaker at a retail store. During that time illegal downloading programs like Napster and Limewire were uprooting the music industry. A CD could be downloaded onto any computer and burned over and over again with no credit or compensation awarded to the artist. This is how I heard her song playing in that Kaua’i surf shop that day. This is also why the clerk at that very shop mistakenly told me that it was a song by Paula Fuga. When I tell Kalikolehuanani this story she blushes and says, “Wow. That’s kinda awesome.”

Her Roots

Kalikolehuanani was born and raised in Kihei, Maui. She headed off to boarding school at Kamehameha Kapalama campus on O’ahu where she met Garth and an instrumental music instructor, Bailey Matsuda. In his class, Matsuda encouraged the girls to explore their creativity, “he gave us the tools to produce our own music. So we took some of my poems and recorded those songs.” At the time, her songs consisted of roots melodies that she layered on to lyrics of her personal poetry. She wrote about heartbreak, mental health, drug abuse, and intimate familial problems. Deep stuff for a teenager who grew up on the idyllic valley isle. “I wrote out of my pain” she admitted.

With mind bending harmonies and soulful lyrics, her underground album resonated with the teenage party scene in Hawai’i. Their songs even appeared curiously on a surf movie by Billabong. In the early 2000ʻs having an unnamed mixtape circulate throughout the islands like that was the equivalent of going viral today, just without the fame, platform, and affiliate marketing opportunities. At the time she performed under the name Sistah Ash. Her talent for songwriting and soulful range was palpable. Quickly her music career began gaining momentum. She featured alongside reggae giants like Bambu Station and collaborated with local reggae producer Koa Lopes of Innavision. Lopes produced her roots-reggae singles, “Lai lai”, ”Ocean Mystic,” and “Million Dollars,” which garnered play on local radio stations. And then, no one heard from Sistah Ash for over a decade.

During her ten-year hiatus from the public music scene, she got married, gave birth to her four sons, graduated with her Bachelorʻs and Masterʻs degree, started teaching, and began working on her husband’s ancestral Kalo farm out in Wailua. Basically, she grew into a mana wahine, a bonafide powerful woman. “When I gave birth to my first child, married my husband, started a family, I struggled to write because I only wrote from pain. Now I’m learning to write in celebration of things… my lens has changed ,” she admitted. While she continued to play music at home with her husband and long time collaborator Kainoa Ka‘auamo she didn’t commit completely to pursuing music again. That is until COVID-19 pandemic forced everyone inside.

“I felt a heavy sense of guilt but my na’au was the one that was like this is what you have to do.”

Kalikolehuanani

Shush, My Na’au is Speaking

“The pandemic really made me reflect on my life. While I was doing really meaningful work, serving the lāhui that I love so much, I felt like I wasnʻt doing what I was put on this earth to do, you know?” It was a difficult decision for her to leave her teaching job at Kula Kaiapuni where she taught at the Hawaiian language immersion school. “I felt a heavy sense of guilt but my na’au was the one that was like this is what you have to do’.”

What happened next was straight out of a page from a Paulo Coehlo book, “when you want something all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.” On Christmas, her husband surprised her with a session at iVibe Studios collaborating with Ikaika Blackburn, a member of the remarkable Nā Hoku Hanohano Award Winning Group Nā Hoa. On guitar, Nā Hoku Hanohano award winning producer Wailau Ryder. Talk about a nudge from the universe. “There was no time to self sabatoge. And I was tired of telling myself the story that I couldn’t do it.”

“But if there’s anything that the pandemic taught me it’s that life is too short to be putting ourselves into boxes.”

Kalikolehuanani

She booked her session and within several hours Mana o Pauwalu was recorded. “The song was already written but he (Blackburn) could see the potential of the song that I didn’t see. I didn’t know I was going to record that song because I was worried about venturing into the Hawaiian music genre because it’s a whole thing in itself. I don’t know all the rules and I thought ‘Who do I think I am?’ But if there’s anything that the pandemic taught me it’s that life is too short to be putting ourselves into boxes.”

While Mana o Pauwalu is an emotional tribute to her Grandfather-in-law who she affectionately calls Papa, there is a beautifully interwoven metaphor amongst the lyrics. “The song speaks of the various taro of Wailua, which is a metaphor for my husband and Papa.” Though Papa was not fluent in ‘ōlelo Hawai’i, he passed down the traditional place names of Wailua along with the Hawaiian names for all of the varieties of taro cultivated in that region, which Kalikolehuanani melodiously archived in the song Mana o Pauwalu. “A lot of those traditions are being lost. It is so difficult to survive in this modern world and farm kalo. We had to make a concerted effort to drive the boys out here each weekend and teach them everything that Kainoa was taught when he was a boy. If we don’t farm kalo, no one will.” Despite her recent introduction into Hawaiian music, she remains hopeful that she’ll return to her roots (pun intended) and release a reggae song someday. “It’s possible” she assures. “For now, I’m just here making the music that I love. I’m just trying to own it”

Photo & Video by: Kelly Gordon | @wahineaction

Originally published at https://mauinative.com on May 14, 2021.