Aloha Alive: The Dawn O'Brien Podcast
Why Aloha? the whole world knows what aloha is--love in Hawai'i--but better to ask WHY ALOHA? the answer is as essential as breath & as fun as whistling, so LET'S GO!
Aloha Alive: The Dawn O'Brien Podcast
Ep. 9 ~ Minister & Musician of Aloha: Kahu Kawika Kahiapo
What is the sacred connection of breath & spirit? This is the "ha" in Alo-ha as explained by acclaimed Hawaiian slack key guitarist Kahu Kawika Kahiapo. Known for his award-winning music that carries the sweet "nahe nahe" quality touching listeners' souls, Kahu Kawika shares stories that reveal how deeply spirituality is woven into authentic Hawaiian music & cultural expressions.
Discover rare insights into how music becomes a vessel for spiritual connection; including a story of Moses Keale's brush with death while hunting on a Ni'ihau cliff—and the resulting spiritual awakening that influenced generations—demonstrates how personal testimony transforms into cultural legacy through song.
Listen & discover how Hawaiian music carries ancient wisdom into contemporary faith practices, & how being fully present may be the most powerful way to perpetuate the true aloha in yr daily life. ALO-HA!
Catch Cousin Kawika Kahiapo on his many gigs & events listed on his website Calendar: www.KawikaKahiapo.net. Plus support local artist & 'ohana by ordering divine music for yr soul--also available on his website. MA-HA-LO!
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Aloha mai kakou aloha. Welcome to Aloha Live Podcast. I'm Auntie Dawn O'Brien and today I'm with one of my most favorite ever slack key guitar artists and Kahu, but I call him cousin. It's Kahu Kavika Kahiapo.
Speaker 2:How's it everybody so happy to be here, cousin?
Speaker 1:Thank you for having us Thank you for making time. He even had to bus the traffic coming over the Pali and you know how it goes when Hawaii. Get traffic, get traffic. So today I wanted to catch us all up. You're a busy K kahu, you're a musician, you're a board member on the north shore and in koko Hawaii with Jack Johnson. You're also a family man. What's new with one of Hawaii's most favorite, most highly awarded slack key guitar artists?
Speaker 2:what's new? Not much. I'm in the studio with Bobby Madero working on a Slacky album. My everyday, weekly, normal gigs in Waikiki.
Speaker 1:You are a busy man. I was looking at your website. I'm going to throw it right out there in case anybody's tuning in now that might have to leave later, but it's kavikakahiaponet, so I noticed that you've got a lot going on, cousin, especially on your website. I love the calendars because I can catch where you're playing live music. Thank you so, kavikakahiyaponet, but you lately have been doing a lot in studio over 130 plus projects with lots of different artists.
Speaker 2:But catch us up on what you're doing right now and you said you're just playing with bobby madero yeah, bobby and I in the studio and, uh, trying to fix up an album that we we started a couple years ago. Um, that's the only thing I got on on on as far as pending, yeah, but recently I read I released the uh anthology album talk to us about that.
Speaker 2:Of some of the music I've either written or co-written with other artists for the past I can't remember how many years 1996. Yeah, almost 29 years, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1:Almost 30 years Fuzzen Pretty good for one 21-year-old guy. I mean no joke. You just walked in and I asked you about the family. You said you have four grandbabies already and I went what? Where did time go? Crazy, it's crazy, crazy. But talk to us about the latest anthology album and thank you for putting it all together, because you do have several albums. I really do love your music. Thank you for playing online live during the pandemic.
Speaker 1:Sorry, during lockdown time you kept us all entertained. But, kavika, you have the Ku'uma Na'o out and it's a collection. Where can we get that at?
Speaker 2:Online. I think you can stream it too, but go to my website and we can make it available. We've been just packing it and mailing it out to whoever orders it.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Now, one of the things I love about you, cousin, other than your great music, and it really does have that nahe nahe anointing which in Hawaiian, nahe nahe means very sweet to the soul, sweet to the spirit. But it's almost like and I know you're going to rebuke me as soon as I say it, but it's almost like brother Israel Cause when we still hear brother is music right. We just, everybody goes there. I remember being on a certain radio station and the we only had three Hawaiian songs we played. It was Mainland Syndicated Radio Station and one was Brada Is, and he had already passed away. I think it was at that point 10 years. I said Brada was already right. Can we play other Hawaiian music? We have great Hawaiian talent and artists. But the reason why I bring that up is that Brada Israel, kamaka Vivo, ole has such an anointing on his music, and you do too. So my question is where does that music come from?
Speaker 2:It comes from the source, it comes from God. We acknowledge that and when we get to the point. I was kind of like a couple of years behind him when he was at Macassans, like in the 77, 78. They had already been running a couple of years but, Makah Sons, they're rooted and grounded in their church. You know and I was still sort of on my wayward way and I got born again in 1983. What I realized, the tradition and the legacy of what our kupuna, what our ohana taught us, was just being grounded, Grounded in the word, grounded in aloha, grounded in just serving, serving others and music was a way for us to sort of bring all of that into focus and help us deliver that, that's good and what I appreciate, what you just said, cousin, is many of our Hawaiians, especially when we look at, let's say, brada Is or Makaha Sons, they were grounded in church.
Speaker 1:We're not saying they're perfect, they weren't necessarily perfect human beings, but they were solid in the church. In fact, lately let's talk about that we were both at a gig. I was emceeing, you were playing music and you started to introduce a song called Uwamau, and that's where, if those of you watching listening, we get our state motto, which is Uwamau ke ea o ka aina I ka pono the life of this land is perpetuated in righteousness.
Speaker 2:Can you tell us the background of that song? Oh, interesting, about then 1996, I was having a phone conversation with Brother Israel. It's funny we knew him as Israel or some would call him Izzy, but then the whole Iz thing came along and I'm like, okay, we know him as.
Speaker 2:Israel. Anyway, he told me this story about their tutu man, moses Keale I hear different versions of the story. He lived in Iha'au came to Kaua'i. Apparently he was in Kalalau hunting a goat, chasing a goat up the mountain. Somehow he, his dog and the goat ended up going off a cliff and on the way, in the air, he prayed like in the middle of it he prayed Lord, if you save me, I will serve you. He hit a hollow tree landed in a pond and apparently his dog actually kind of like grabbed him and pulled him to the. That's kind of like how the story goes and they got the goat, I guess. But then anyway, he started a church after that, started to serve the Lord on Niihau well, niihau, and apparently he was kahua at a church.
Speaker 1:After that, started to serve the.
Speaker 2:Lord On Niihau, Well, Niihau, and apparently he was kahua at a church in Waimea too. On Kaua'i.
Speaker 1:Which is west side Kaua'i for those of you who don't know and understand, and it's literally right across a small channel. You can see each other Niihau, west Kaua'i.
Speaker 2:You can swim across. It be that brave, but anyway. So that was an influential, I think, turning point, I think God moment for people of Niihau Kiali family and, you know, ohanas in Kauai and their tradition carries to today.
Speaker 1:That's amazing to hear, cousin, because and I was sharing with you that night I know Kumuhula, lena ala jardine, and she is right up there on kawaii and she has ohana from niihau, which is largely a christian island, right, I once met I think it was like eight women came to a women's conference from the ihao was over half the island came and I was like, yeah, you, but uh, and that's the niihau shell earrings I'm wearing was from that lady. I was signing her a book, right, my book Spirit Speak, and I looked up and I didn't mean to do this, but I. What I didn't mean was for her to give me her earrings. But I looked up and they are very nice, right, and I made the mistake as one Polynesian to another, I said, oh so, oi, your earrings so lovely.
Speaker 1:And I looked down to finish autographing the book for her. And when I looked back up and I gave her my humble little book, she had taken off these earrings and these are worth a good amount of money, these are long ones. And she said this for you. And what moved me in that moment is our Polynesian people. That's how, if you compliment someone, then you give it over. So I've told that story a few times and other women are like oh nice, your earrings then I almost said that I got a similar thing.
Speaker 2:You know, over the years I get sponsored instruments, I get given instruments. I mean my wife will tell you for every one guitar I give away I get given to. Like I mean my wife will tell you, for every one guitar I give away I get given two, like what's it? I'll come home, she goes where's those from now? And it's like it's just Poor Lori, that giving spirit. I feel like when we can be liberal with what he gives us, it's like he'll open up doors, he'll make things happen, you know. So I'm blessed in that regard. Yes, the conversation with Brother Iz was like he's like I don't know why I'm telling you these Kaviks and he told me the story and I'm like then, over the years, that was probably 96. And I think he passed in 97, like a year later.
Speaker 1:And then that was the inspiration for Uwamau you said the song came out of that so.
Speaker 2:So tutu man went back, started the church, wrote the song ua mau, you know powerful you know, it's like we are gathered in the goodness, goodness of god, and uh, yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1:Now you can sing the songs and tell the story and now when we hear that music we can hear the entire I I've always been a fan, even as a radio DJ playing music. I love the backstory, I love the mana'o behind the message and that's where it comes from. Another song that I want to bring up right in the front of this is O'oio, of the most often heard worship songs that I hear when I go around and I see all of my friends, right the kohine, they dance hula, the worship with kanani, mai ole right Some of the people we mutually know here in Hawaii. But it's gone around the world and again it's got an anointing and an appointing on it. Cousin, where did O'oio come from and can you sample for us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did a songwriting workshop retreat, white male, hawaii island with david and dale garrett and those in it in the christian circle. That been running 40, 50 years. They know david and dale because they were the founders of scripture and song back in the day. So I gotta say every church out of the 70s and 80s was probably singing music out of their Christian catalog, hallelujah, and at some point he felt called to the indigenous people.
Speaker 2:So it was at Lauren Cunningham, when Lauren was literally after 25 years I think, they were honoring him at an event and David and Dale were going to go on stage to share their thing and they felt the Lord speak to him because he lives in Aotearoa, new Zealand. He said I'm going to move you into a new direction and that was David started traveling the world and getting with non-western indigenous people in their raw sort of moments of their history, their legacy, their sound, that he encouraged them to bring forth their language, their instruments, their dress and worship God with what he gave them in the first place, and that's the platform we were running on. So we met a bunch of us for like eight days.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then a bunch of music came out of that, and Oeo is one of them.
Speaker 1:And interesting. You bring that up with Aotearoa and the Hawaii connection is New Zealand. Between New Zealand and Hawaii, we now know, according to Daniel Kikawa, there was almost, if you could call it, a railroad express, but it was the vaas right. It was the canoes that would go back and forth and I bring this up for you, listening or watching, that our god is the one true god of polynesia, of hawaii, aotearoa, tonga right, and that we worshipped him not as yesu but as e yo. That was the name of the one true god. Is that correct? Correct, kahup?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the musician that toured with Dave and Dale you know we all would share, we'd worship, eat breakfast in the morning, then break out into different you know cells, and so he come back one day and he and Dale come. We have this song, they wrote it in. Maori says Koko'i'o, you are supreme. In Maori says Koko'i'o, you are supreme. Matu'ate kore, one without parent.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting, all the metaphor and kauna Polynesian Jews to describe, and so they started singing and sharing it with us, and Timari Boyd and Moses Crabb wrote the Hawaiian version.
Speaker 1:Wow, and can you play a sample for us, klazen? As we're talking about it, it's surging through my brain, but I want all of our listeners and viewers.
Speaker 2:So it's interesting, Kavaiola Living Water. So anyway.
Speaker 3:O'oio I'm a kua lani O'o e I o ka I o la O'o e I o e kumu o la Ka mea hale I la mea pahu he kuuhaku Ka mauna kie kie O'o e iu Ko koe I o mātua te kōrei Kō koe I o te mai ora Kō koe I o te pūkenga Te kaihanga o ngā mea katoa Te maunga te te kō koe I o. You are supreme, everlasting Father, king of kings, living water, emmanuel, the source of life, the one who has made all things, my only master At high mountain.
Speaker 2:O Prince of Peace.
Speaker 3:O Iyo E makualani. Oh, I know and I'm not going to. Oh, I know, I know, oh, I know and I'm not going to. O'o e iu e kumu ola Ka mea hala, ila mea pahu E ku'u haku Ka maunga kie kie. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Speaker 1:Mahalo Nahe nahe Sweet to the soul, to the marrow of the jones of your bones. I know you could feel it, cousin. I love that you point to the source when I ask you where the music comes from. And can you just be real clear on who the source is? And I often hear you, minister, when we're out and we do a lot of gigs. Thank you for that. I feel like we are always in passing, but you always take the time to aloha to say hello, to talk story, but you also talk of the source of aloha. Can you share that with our listeners and viewers?
Speaker 2:the source, you know the e, uh, yahweh, genesis, one from nothingness. God spoke, so I always pondered, I thought, in the expanse of just the universe, he decides and starts to speak. And when we speak, speak, we exude breath, right, so it says in Genesis. He spoke and started forming the earth. After a few days, it's like how beautiful it was, and at some point he had formed a garden. You know separation of the water, the ocean, the light, the dark, and he needed someone to malama the garden, this beautiful thing that he created.
Speaker 2:And so that whole idea of first knowing, out of an act of love, an act of aloha, he was going to create and form a being.
Speaker 2:Of this creation, in a sort of sequential moment, what he created, the minerals and the cataclysmic culmination of all of it to come together.
Speaker 2:Then, from the level, from the dirt, he forms the first man, adam Forms Adam, and Allah breathes into Adam's nostrils and sets into motion the intent of every human being on the planet, planet, every human being to receive or have an opportunity to at least come to the point of acknowledging what the source is, why he spoke, why he created and why he put us on the earth to manage, to take care to be embodied and empowered by that spirit.
Speaker 2:So he breathes into Adam the ha, the divine breath. Alo, proximity of ha, divine breath sets into motion and, I think, when we all can just simply be in awe of the fact that that moment, just think from the most mundane what's the word? Lifeless thing, the dirt, the lepo he forms and out of the most lowly thing he creates this being in his image. And our mandate, I think, is to know the source as we become Christians, as we come into faith, as we put into practice the lifestyle. It really is that, first of all, acknowledging he's the one that breathed life into us, he's the one that can empower us, inspire us, motivate us, heal us. That's good.
Speaker 2:So, at that point of being transformed, we know what it is to seek him as a source is to seek Him as a source to receive, to practice and to be an instrument of His, to just live and breathe and coming to every situation with aloha first.
Speaker 2:So, like you know, corinthians, you can speak with the tongue of men and angels, but without love. So love is the greatest, aloha is the greatest. And I think guys like us, like me, kelly Boy, all the musicians, we feel like that's what a blessing to have a platform to be able to sing and to manipulate and put words into a song that will convey something that's of the aina, of the people, of the culture, but more specifically, for us to know that it all goes like this right back back up. That way, I'm blessed to be able to receive, reciprocate and put it out there.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you for that, for aloha. And aloha, once again, is to face or be in proximity. As you said, kahu, as a native Hawaiian, and ha is to exchange breath. And it's interesting to me that during, you know, during the lockdown and when we were all separate, you know we might talk about our cell phones and say we have connection, but we don't and we did what we could right, we had screens, we did live streams, but this is the aloha to be in proximity with another human and to connect heart to heart. In fact, neuroscience shows even that our hearts project a rhythm and you can feel that five feet out, that you know, when I walk into a room and if I'm not feeling quite well and I'm kind of sad and I'm actually kind of mad at certain things, people usually can feel that you can feel another person's honor, their spirit, and you were just saying that that's a critical thing for having all of that connection. I love that. Thank you for the source of aloha. I've heard you share it many times and it really does impact and even if I've heard it before, it's refreshing to recover the basics Always.
Speaker 1:The podcast is called Aloha Alive and part of my. I'm not a singer. I don't play music. You know, I always joke and say the only instrument I've ever played is the radio and I got fired from that.
Speaker 2:So never too late.
Speaker 1:Maybe I even took a class from Kelly Boy. But what I can do is I sure can flap my gums and I can talk and I can share the word of God and so I love hearing that because part of our cultures and I grew up part of my youth in Tonga where I was born part of our Polynesian culture is the olelo, or to have mo olelo to share the word, to speak. It's an oral history culture right. And when we reshare stories very similar to the Jewish culture or the Jesus culture, it was always sharing stories. He was a prophet who shared parables, stories all the time. When we share these stories about aloha, it perpetuates the aloha u'amau right.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 1:Is that and that was my next question coming back to you, cousin, as we're starting to bring this in for a landing is what is one thing about the hawaiian culture? Because you're a hawaiian, you get culture. But what is one thing because they say aloha seems like the aloha spirit is kind of fading. I think it's changing would be a better word right as we have a lot of new people moving in. What's one part, part of our Aloha culture that you miss and would like to breathe fresh life into?
Speaker 2:I think we're all distracted. There's so much static in life today and I think it's kind of almost by design that there's most things that can distract us and all the static that can get us off point Again, the practice, right, where to begin, where to start. If someone could just identify like, so, like the breath, the divine breath. The word Yahweh literally is Yahweh. So my wife and I were praying yesterday and we do that, we do watch this. It's an action Cannot be spoken Because you cannot breathe in and say the word Yah, it's literally so. Yah literally means breathe in, weh means breathe out. Culturally, culturally, historically, that's literally what it means.
Speaker 2:So when you do, we're born, the moment we're born, the doctor, the moment we start breathing, every human being on the planet instinctively is almost constantly proclaiming but the key is at that point of when the light goes on and you start to identify for all of us who are believers, identify he is, he was and always is, will never change, and every breath we take is again to just sit back and go. It's like and that sets the tone, the spirit, the ano, the moment when you can come into every situation you encounter with that, with that approach. I think that that sets the tone, that opens the door for the lord to to show up, basically, and then we can function and operate and it makes everything we do sacred.
Speaker 1:If we're constantly mindful and thinking that, when I'm breathing, yeah, that he put his imprint, almost like his thumbprint, on every single one of us, and when we come and we encounter in the holiness and in the breath of god, it makes life tapu sacred, right?
Speaker 2:wow, cousin, that is quite a gift and it costs nothing right it's presence and instinctively, we don't have to like oh prayer closet, oh, I gotta make, oh I gotta stop doing it. It's like every moment, wherever you at yes on the highway brought a cut in front of you. I gotta do that more often, but anyway with two fingers, not one but, but, but again, everywhere, everyone, every moment, it's an opportunity for us to like if we want that yeah it's accessible it's directly accessible, it's free and it's already imprinted.
Speaker 2:It's innate and we're too distracted with all the static around us.
Speaker 1:But that's a make time, take time and be present, and that's what I think I mentioned earlier with you, cousin kavika. When we and when I encounter you, and you know, usually on the mc there's a lot of stress going on, on whatever stage it is. Artists are coming and going, I'm introducing people, but when I encounter you, cousin, it's you always practice the presence, I am fully present. 100. So mahalo to you for perpetuating the culture of aloha Yahweh, the source.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, what's the last question for you? And I don't know if you want to do one more song, but I always ask a last word what is aloha to you? You've explained that, but can you capture that maybe in an experience, a memory, a smell or maybe a taste, like for me I shared with kelly boy. Them, I said, and they were on him and leo, I said for me was guava fight, brah down by. You know, you go south point. Big island was queen's pond. It's been run over by lava, but we used guava fight and you get the more rotten that guava you could smack somebody really good and they stink, stink for days. What was?
Speaker 2:one of your favorite things. Growing up, hawaii Went with Kaneohe. We used to literally eight, ten of us in one day go find all the swimming holes. There's one place that comes through Kaneohe Library. We would start at Keaapuka, behind Burger King. Kaneohe yeah, go through the river all the way through, jump in a pond, keep coming down, come through where the library is. This other place we used to call Green Lake or Green Pond by Bayview Golf Course, and then there's a historic waterfall pond in Crown Terrace, kaneohe. Wow, all of Kaneohe knows it, it's Makawili. Really, my dad used to swim there when he was a kid, not, but there's these little pockets where, if you know, you know where to go would do that. We would go hunt for the swimming holes, go swim, same thing pick guavas, pick mangoes, guava fight, mango fight. But uh, those were the days those were the days.
Speaker 1:That's a song right there. Those were the days because I know even sam Kapu III he goes no, don was the cow doodle fight. And you put rocks inside and I go brother, just shut your mouth. Right now I don't want to hear the rest of the story. You can get diseased from that.
Speaker 2:Not all of us had access to.
Speaker 1:Kapu, Right, he was down down. Well, thank you, Kahukavika Kahiyapo, for bringing your mana'o, your music and the message of Iyo Yawe that was seriously so deep. And thank you for that memory of going swimming Big Island. We used to do the same thing, Starting from all the way from Mountain right. We go from Mauka to Makai and you find all those little places and you ride all the way down, Whether it's waterfalls or little slides. Bro, those were the days, Any last one Na'o, you wanted to share. Brother on your heart, we're good.
Speaker 2:Aloha from the source every day. As we reciprocate, receiving from him right back, then we can just start to go horizontal Again.
Speaker 1:this is Kahu Kavika Kahiapo, on Aloha Alive, and I'm Auntie Dawn.
Speaker 3:Aloha, aloha.