Paula Fuga and the bands Kamau and Kupa ‘Aina buck tradition and find freedom in musical exploration

by Lesa Griffith / 01-04-2006

On stage is a calm, queenly young woman, wrapped in a black pareo. She stands on her bare feet, and in a plaintive, soulful voice, sings “Lilikoi” to a gentle reggae beat. Midway through the bittersweet song of love, she breaks into ‘olelo Hawai‘i—“Ina mamake au e hopu i ka i‘a/ Pono e malama i ka lo‘i / e piha ana i ka loko i‘a / hiki no ke koho me ka pono” (“If I want to catch a fish, I must tend to my lo‘i / The fish pond will fill up/ I will be able to choose with correctness.”)

The audience goes crazy.

Unlike the tracks in rotation on Hawaiian 105 KINE—which are as trapped in the past as Jurassic flies preserved in amber—her songs are living examples of Hawaiian music.

Her name is Paula Fuga, a Hawaiian girl from Waimanalo who made a splash when she auditioned for American Idol in 2004. She plans to release her self-produced debut in February, and Jack Johnson just tapped her to join him in this year’s Kokua Festival. Along with the bands Kamau and Kupa ‘Aina, Fuga is part of the next wave of Hawaiian music.

Twenty-five years after the death of Gabby Pahinui, a handful of bands and performers are making music that might not sound like “Hi‘ilawe,” but its heart is pure Hawaiian. Kamau and Kupa ‘Aina are two bands that write and perform songs about real life and current problems that say more about the islands today than “Fish and poi, I’m a big boy.” Sometimes they do it in ‘olelo Hawai‘i.

Not that there is a lack of contemporary local acts putting out Hawaiian music. Far from it. But from Keali‘i Reichel to ‘Ekolu, the songs are, by and large, slick, sentimental productions that have all the soul engineered right out of them. And more often than not, the lyrics are little more than the musical equivalent of a “Live aloha” bumper sticker— they are meaningless words in a time when Hawai‘i faces pressing political and social issues.

“It gives us inspiration to want to put something out there that people can grab onto and think about, to try to fill that void that’s out there,” says Kamana Beamer of Kamau. “A lot of people are trying to do it, but you play [Island Rhythm] 98.5, and… not to say there’s anything bad about it, but it’s kind of commercial.”

He adds, “We have beautiful islands, beaches and people, but we have a lot of problems, and that’s not reflected at all.”

What is Hawaiian music?

Two years ago Paula Fuga went to the Tahiti Fête at the Waikiki Shell. “To me, the music is as Hawaiian as the person playing the music,” the singer says. “Man, I love Sade, R&B kind music. At this show, the performance was unreal. For 45 minutes this one halau kept the stage going at all times. Girls in cellophane skirts imitating the sound of the ocean. In the background all the traditional instruments stopped. There was this acoustic guitar doing Sade’s ‘Sweetest Taboo,’ then they went into Tahitian—I got chicken skin.”

“We’re trying to negotiate our identity. Local people are not just Hawaiian—it’s the generation before us that was concerned with annihilation. Ours is trying to recapture what the generation before may have lost. That’s something that’s going on around the world.”
—Kevin Chang of Kupa ‘Äina

Fuga realized she could use Hawaiian language with any kind of music. “If they can do Tahitian R&B, I can do whatever I want in Hawaiian,” she says.

While the local media keep rummaging through the record bins of Hawaiian music past, a whole new renaissance is happening. Fuga wonders if perhaps it is because a whole cadre of young talent such as Raiatea Helm keep the traditional flame burning bright that a new sound has emerged. Freed from the chains of preservation, musicians have the liberty to embrace innovation. It’s what Eddie Kamae and Pahinui did in the 1950s, and Peter Moon, the Cazimeros, Country Comfort and Kalapana did in the 1970s.

Establishing identity

Every Wednesday for the last five years, Keola Nakanishi, the director of Halau Ku Mana Public Charter School, has hosted an open music jam in his garage on St. Louis Heights Drive.

On a recent night, Fuga, Kupa ‘Aina leader and entertainment lawyer Kevin Chang and a handful of other talented musicians—some in bands, others not—are gathered in the dark, the only light coming from a lamp post above and the blue glow of an electronic keyboard. People move effortlessly from instrument to instrument—guitar to drums to keyboards. And they all join in on the singing.

Mike Love, who drums with five bands, including Melodious Solutions and Dub Konscious, says, “This is my favorite place to play music. It’s pretty magical. Cool bands, like Groundation, always find their way here.”

According to Nakanishi, the producer of the short-lived television series Hawaii dropped by once looking for “organic, less poppy local music.” And there’s a reason. “There are a lot of things that come from the love of music. Different focus, agendas or styles of music all come together towards pono,” Nakanishi says. “What’s on the radio is so sterile, standard and limited and not pono. These people are doing it here.”

Later in the evening, a musician shows up with a Tahitian banjo, which looks like a mini wooden Stratocaster. He joins in on a song while Fuga and Love whistle in harmony.

After singing a song in his strong, clear tenor voice, Chang says Hawaiian music is “a thing that talks about identity—maintaining or perpetuating our way of life.” But to him, a half-Chinese, half-Irish kama‘aina, he adds, “it doesn’t necessarily pertain only to native people. We’re trying to negotiate our identity. Local people are not just Hawaiian—it’s the generation before us that was concerned with annihilation. Ours is trying to recapture what the generation before may have lost. That’s something that’s going on around the world—struggling with globalism and change beyond [people’s] control.”

Chang and his bandmates in Kupa ‘Aina, which released its first CD, Simple Island People, in 2004, have a reggae sound, but it’s a far cry from the my-island-baby Jawaiian jamming the airwaves. It’s revelatory to hear Kalama Cabigon sing the all-Hawaiian “Eo mana Maoli,” in a fervent voice that infuses the language with immediacy. It’s a forceful piece of music. It is also Halau Ku Mana’s ‘aelike, sort of its pledge of allegiance, setting out the school’s principles, such as “I will be pono in my ways.” Written by school staff, royalties from Kupa ‘Aina’s recording go to Ku Mana. “Our music is a hybrid of contemporary and traditional,” says Chang. “It’s part of the process of becoming and defining who we are. We and Kamau are trying to take music and bring it to a new generation. You listen to Jawaiian—you gotta wonder what that identity is.”

Chang then starts playing a song he wrote—“Sovereign Individual”—and the crew joins in effortlessly, like at a classic Waimanalo backyard slack-key jam.

Maoli music

Kamau—which includes the sons of Hawaiian music royalty Steve Ma‘i‘i, Calvin Hoe and Kapono Beamer, a recent Grammy nominee—plays what the band calls “maoli music.” To Kamana Beamer, the group’s guitarist, traditional Hawaiian music “needs to be done, and it’s beautiful, but I think maoli music, at least as I think of it, is kind of what this generation is trying to say, whether it be in ‘olelo Hawai‘i or English or pidgin. It’s not something that someone can tell you, you got to jump inside this box if you want to win the Hawaiian Grammy.”

As the son and nephew, respectively, of slack-key masters Kapono and Keola Beamer, Kamana has the background to back his philosophy up. He’s working on his Ph.D in geography—specializing in Hawaiian land boundaries—but for him, music is “the first priority with everything. I kind of don’t have a choice,” he says.

“There are no synthesizers. It’s very organic. We’re going for timelessness,” Paula Fuga says of her recently finished CD.

Beamer acknowledges there’s a lot of pressure. “I’m sure my dad dealt with the same thing with my grandmother or great great grandmother. I’m sure everyone dealt with it in their own way. To fill my dad’s shoes would be impossible, so I just decided to wear slippers,” he says with a laugh.

To him, the slippers are the band’s own contemporary expression. “Like my grandpa, he was fluent in Hawaiian, [and] when he wanted to express himself, it wasn’t a problem. His composing wasn’t limited in any way. If he wanted to write a song about Waimea, he wrote a song about Waimea. And that’s kind of what we’re trying to do now with maoli music. We want to be able to do that playing electric instruments, whatever rhythms, whatever we way we want to do it—we just want to be able to talk about what’s happening.”

And what does Uncle Keola think about Kamau’s music? “I find it really intriguing. I’ve been following them at [Hale Noa] ‘awa bar, on the sidelines cheering for them. It’s a whole new musical world, something they have to figure out for themselves,” says the elder Beamer. “On the other hand, his father and I aren’t really encouraging about going into the musical life. [Kamana] is going to have to make a choice in his life.”

“Hawaiian music wasn’t Hawaiian music until someone said it was,” says bassist and aspiring filmmaker Kaliko Ma‘i‘i, the son of respected bassist Steve Ma‘i‘i, who played with the Beamer Brothers in their Honolulu City Lights era and is the subject of his son’s award-winning short documentary Steve Ma‘i‘i. “Whether it be with a nose flute or when they got the ‘ukulele and guitars, [the music] was someone expressing themselves.” The band aims to release a CD this summer.

Considering that all four band members are pro-Hawaiian Kingdom, it’s not a surprise that many of Kamau’s songs have a political bent. “The first time we played music, that’s what [Kamana] was singing about. And I needed that to be able to play music,” says Ma‘i‘i. “So from that moment, all of us have clicked on that level, of being Hawaiian and wanting to sing about something more. I’m not trying to say we’re some solution. We just try to click on that level of being Hawaiian.”

At a practice session in the apartment of drummer Adam Zaslow, who is Beamer’s cousin, the band members stand in a circle facing each other and play “Life from the Lo‘i.” On a coffee table is a sticker that reads, “Occupation is war,” while on a bookshelf sits a copy of University of Hawai‘i professor David Stannard’s American Holocaust, which focuses on the genocide of American indigenous people. Singer and ‘ukulele player Kawai Hoe is missing—he’s helping out at a benefit for the Hokule‘a. Hoe, the son of nose flutist Calvin, runs the sailing canoe’s escort boat.

The moody intro to “Life from the Lo‘i”—which sounds a bit like something Santana might have crafted—transitions to vocals from Beamer. He sings, “About 200 years ago, my brother / many people died from diseases / and we are the surviving ones, yeah… / when you wake up in the morning / and the sun is in your eyes / don’t you wear no disguise / Who’s side are you on? / We are coming to you from the lo‘i.”

“It’s a song of survival,” says Beamer. “If our kupuna could have handled the massive deaths from disease [in the 1800s], then we can handle what we’ve got to do if we step up to the plate.” Like Chang searching for identity, Beamer and the rest of Kamau look to history to learn who they are today.

The pono impresario

In the midst of recording her first album, Fuga runs her own company—Pakipika Productions. She also works as an educational interpreter at the Bishop Museum and teaches Hawaiian Studies at Ahuimanu Elementary School in Kane‘ohe.

“There are a lot of things that come from the love of music. Different focus, agendas or styles of music all come together towards pono,” Keola Nakanishi says. “What’s on the radio is so sterile, standard and limited and not pono. These people are doing it here.”

Recently back from San Francisco, where her tracks were mixed at legendary Hyde Street Studios (the Grateful Dead cut their early recordings there), Fuga is busy arranging gigs—John Brown’s Body invited her to sing with them at Kapono’s after they heard her voice—and seeing the birth of her CD through. But she’s no music-industry shill. She is as grounded and sincere as the music she’s about to release. “There are no synthesizers. It’s very organic. We’re going for timelessness,” she says.

She recruited her close friend, artist Solomon Enos, to design the cover, but with one request—the warm yellow-orange colors of the “shi shi tree’s flowers” be featured.

Fuga easily strums her ‘ukulele on her R&B and reggae-influenced songs. The tracks are perfect vehicles for Fuga’s strong, smoky voice, which can go from lows like soft dark clouds to vibrato-shaped highs. Often about longing, her songs might include the occasional wistful violin, as on “Thought of You,” that in one bar of music say more than a thousand “I will always love yous.”

There are lots of stories of wonder in Fuga’s life. She tells the story of how the wife of her sound engineer, Patrick Conway, decided that since Fuga’s album was started on Hawaiian land, it should be finished on Hawaiian land. To accomplish that, a bottle of O‘ahu sand arrived by mail for Fuga who was in San Francisco. She sprinkled it over the studio floor.

Fuga writes her own music and lyrics. While her compositions are of a more personal, introspective nature than that of Kamau and Kupa ‘Aina, it’s her use of ‘olelo Hawai‘i—native metaphors and images applied to an R&B sound—that make them part of the new Hawaiian sound. While Grammy-dominating ki ho‘alu and traditional ballads such as “Hawai‘i Aloha” have an eternal place in the island’s music pantheon, and need to be preserved, there is too much innovative talent here for the meaning of “Hawaiian music” to not evolve. As Fuga says, “I can play anything I want, and it will still be Hawaiian.”