Makana (left) and special guest Miss Aloha Hula 1980 Ka‘ula Kamahele will perform at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center on Saturday in a concert dedicated to the music of Maui Nui. PAUL GRACE photo
Celebrating songs of Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Kahoolawe on Saturday at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, the musician Makana will debut a special new song he composed, “Lahainalalo,” which pays tribute to Lahaina.
“I’m going to play my favorite songs from the four islands, and tell lots of stories, some personal and some historical stories,” Makana explained. “I did this in Hilo earlier in the year where I played all songs for Hawaii island and I ended up playing some that I knew, but I had a bunch of new ones. The same thing with this show, there will be some that I grew up with and others that I’ve never performed before.”
An acclaimed Hawaiian slack key guitar virtuoso, he will play various slack styles that have influenced him at the concert. “It’s fun because I end up by default showcasing all kinds of different family styles of slack key, Gabby (Pahinui), Dennis Kamakahi, the Beamers, Sonny (Chillingworth), all kinds.”
He reported he’s excited about debuting the new Lahaina song.
“I spent months composing and rewriting it probably 20 or 30 times,” he said. “I’ve consulted kumu on Maui. It really went deep. It’s part in English and part in ‘Olelo Hawai’i. The song really covers 600 years of history, and it gives a vision for going forward as well.”
Since the Maui fires, Makana has pondered how best to help, and he was one of the highlights of Henry Kapono’s “We Are Friends Maui” benefit show at the MACC in September, which raised more than $200,000.
“It’s impacted me because this whole Hawaii is my community,” said the Oahu-grown musician. “So I took a moment to really observe and see where I could fit in terms of support and help, and of course obviously all of us entertainers have been fundraising and that’s a given. I have continued to be focused on supporting various agencies and community, both private and public sector, in working to protect the community on an environmental level.”
Makana has been particularly drawn to aiding the Help Maui Rise organization, which started as a spreadsheet of stories of residents impacted by the fires and links to their GoFundMe or Venmo accounts.
“It seems that Help Maui Rise created a really effective system that moves money directly in the hands of vetted families quickly,” he said. “It gets money into the hands of many families and also they’ve been working with undocumented families that maybe don’t speak English. That’s really important, because as we know, Lahaina was largely service industry, and a lot of those folks do not have representation.”
Taught at an early age by Hawaiian slack key guitar legend Sonny Chillingworth, this innovative guitarist has developed an original voice, transcending boundaries and embracing culturally diverse music. Among his accomplishments, he’s been featured on three Grammy-nominated albums, including the soundtrack of the Academy Award-winning film “The Descendants.” In 2012, he was awarded the Ki Ho’alu Foundation Legacy Award.
Recently performing in New York for the Halawai Film Festival, the first Indigenous Pacific island film festival held in the city, Makana took time to play for the crew of the voyaging canoe Hokule’a in Newport, Calif., on his way home.
Busy with a range of projects, he continues “to make hundreds of songs for Instagram and Facebook that are available freely for users on reels and stories. That’s in my partnership with Meta.”
Next year, he will embark on an intriguing project working “with some cultural proponents and other talents on Maui to launch an internet-based TV show, that’s cultural and educational.
“A boatload of creativity is going to explode through various portals next year,” he said. “I’ve got 10 projects in the works, records that have been mastered, sitting in the can because I’ve been too busy to release them. There’s so much coming out.”
“Makana: Songs of Maui Nui” with special guest Miss Aloha Hula 1980 Ka’ula Kamahele, is presented at the MACC’s McCoy Studio Theater at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday. Tickets are $35, $45 and $65 (plus applicable fees), available at MauiArts.org.
Makana (left) and special guest Miss Aloha Hula 1980 Ka‘ula Kamahele will perform at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center on Saturday in a concert dedicated to the music of Maui Nui. PAUL GRACE photoToday's breaking news and more in your inbox
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