Kali: Oh, these kalo look good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're right on track.

We're in Manoa Valley.

We're in Lua'alaea.

This is the place of our kings and queens.

This is the places of our wao akua, all of our gods.

We're on our farm, our family farm.

We have a nonprofit, it's called Kumu Ola Foundation.

And, yeah, that's what we're doing.

(music) Music.

I have my first glimpses of music through hula and watching my babysitter teach hula.

You know, I went to a church, church school kind of thing, choir, where they taught us harmony and really how to find your voice a little bit.

As far as music direction, whew, yeah.

So it was gospel choir, right, growing up, and then the reggae music came in too.

(music) Kali: One to me, reggae is a vehicle.

It's a vehicle for messages to come across as a Hawaiian playing Reggae, it transcends our culture, right?

It may have birthed out of out of Jamaica, but you know what I mean?

Like this is this is talking about reality, about people suffering, about how they want change, about how we want change, right?

You know, it's like directly I'm saying I want change, straight up.

Kali: (singing Hell Fire by Ooklah the Moc) Oh, I see what you've done to me.

The way you kill me and the way you rape me.

But I can't wait forever for someone to come help me.

As I can see us together, that's why I purge thee.

So I send down Jah Hell Fire.

Sucking up the blood of the land to change the evil ways of man.

So I send down Jah Hell Fire.

Send it as a warning to change your evil ways.

We send it as a warning to change your evil ways.

Butch: Aloha kakou.

My name is Butch Helemano, and I played reggae for almost 50 years.

Previously, a reggae artist right, now retired.

Craig: My name is Craig Okino, and I was the bass player in Cool Runnings, which, as far as I know, was the first reggae band in Hawai'i.

Butch: I wasn't the first person to play reggae in Hawai'i.

But fortunately, I was the first one to have an album that was recorded, and that album was played on the local radio waves, yeah.

I wasn't a Hawaiian artist who did one song, I was a strictly reggae artist.

I was born here in Hawai'i when my dad left the Honolulu Police Department, we moved to San Francisco.

My mother was a piano player, so I learned how to play piano at an early age, about five years old.

Craig: You know, I went to college in the Bay Area, right, in the late 60s, that's that's how old I am.

And so I was really into, like, you know, rock music.

In '72 or '73 I think, this movie came out, "The Harder They Come," that's the movie that introduced reggae to the world, really.

It wasn't that great of a movie, but the soundtrack was just a killer and opened up a whole world for me, like, all of a sudden, I just was totally into reggae.

Butch: Well, I started out as an opera singer when I was a young kid.

Then, when my voice changed, I got into playing contemporary music, but I started high school bands, and we're playing blues and rock.

I was touring with blues bands, playing bass, B3 organ and guitar.

Then I joined the Rastafarian kaisa music, which is calypso music.

That was about 1972.

I hung out in Berkeley, I was going, I was going to college at that time, and most of the friends I had were from the Caribbean or from the West Indies.

So in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Jose area, and especially in Berkeley and Oakland, Caribbean music is quite popular.

There's a huge Caribbean population there.

So I fell right into that kind of music.

And then they started segueing into reggae and then next thing you know, I became a reggae artist.

Craig: The Bay Area is one of the few places in the country where reggae was popular.

And then I moved back here to Hawai'i in the mid 70s, and then I found out, okay, nobody's nobody here has heard of reggae.

Sunaina: Reggae first arrived in Hawai'i through mainstream radio and record stores in the 1970s large record companies like the famous Island Records actually marketed reggae as a type of alternative rock aimed at white audiences.

The music that would pop up at these record stores were big names like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bernie spear.

Esther: Some of it was just party music, but some of it was definitely political and for political purposes.

And you have to ask, Well, why were Jamaicans making, you know, overtly political music?

And then for that, you have to understand the history of Jamaica.

Jamaica suffered over 500 years of colonialism, first under Spanish rule and then under English and British rule.

The indigenous people of Jamaica were pretty much, you know, committed genocide against.

Africans were trafficked and enslaved to work the plantations that created the wealth of certainly England, Great Britain, but also Europe generally.

And so what happened is Jamaica is one of the most unequal countries in the world, and has been from day one.

Music became this, this call, this voice of resistance, but also of retelling.

To change the histories, the histories that were Eurocentric, the histories that were colonial, the histories that were anti-African, that were white supremacist.

Because across the world, whether Africa, whether the Caribbean, whether Latin America, whether Oceania, we have all suffered under colonial rule, you know, under settler occupation, under militarism, you know, all the things that have decimated indigenous people.

Carolyn: In Poland, the Solidarity Movement used reggae as one of the means of mobilizing political projects.

(music playing) Carolyn: In Australia, New Zealand, indigenous peoples, they also used reggae.

And so you saw reggae moving across the globe, because it was essentially a music of political protest.

Get up.

Stand up.

Stand up for your rights.

Esther: So that is the power that reggae music played across the world, and continues to play less so in Jamaica, but, you know, still plays in places like Hawai'i to this day.

Sunaina: Locally produced reggae first emerged in Hawai'i in the 1970s and 80s.

So backyards, you know, baby's first birthday, graduation.

Eventually, reggae started to creep up into these contexts, alongside what musicians were already playing, which included traditional and contemporary Hawaiian music, country pop music from the continent, and oldies and more.

The earliest reggae recordings from Hawai'i that I could find, both were released in 1977.

One is from the album, And So We Are by Olomana.

It's this little outro to the album, and you can miss it really easily.

And the second is Mr.

Reggae, by Billy Kaui from his self-titled album.

Kamasami: Billy Kaui from Waimanalo, he was the lead singer in a group called Country Comfort, and Billy went on his own and did a solo project in which he sang a song called Mr.

Reggae.

And that was like the first reggae song I heard back in the day.

And I thought, wow, this is this is really interesting, and it really works well.

Reggae really works well with the atmosphere, the climate and the attitude of life here in Hawai'i.

Daniel: I think the first concert was at the Andrews Amphitheater, and it was Toots and the Maytals.

Great, great concert.

And then after that, I think it was ‘78 or ‘79 Jimmy Cliff came.

And then, of course, Bob Marley, in 1979.

Marty: He played Maui, he played Lahaina Civic and he also played Waikiki Shell.

Craig: And I went, and it was like half full.

You know, nobody, even Bob Marley, couldn't draw people back then, because people just just didn't know about about reggae, because you never heard it on the radio, and was really hard to get in the record store.

So, you know, he just couldn't, couldn't, you didn't have a chance to hear it.

Norm: No advertising.

Stations wouldn't sponsor it, and so, you know, didn't.

But he still had maybe 1,800 people there.

It wasn't, it wasn't dead, dead.

Daniel: I think Bob Marley's concert really triggered a massive interest in reggae music in Hawai'i.

Danny: How I first got turned on to reggae music was me and my older brother and my older sister, we would ride to school in a hand me down VW Volkswagen bug that we got from my uncle, and there was an eight-track cassette player in there.

For the young ones they'll never know, you'd have to go to the museum to see what that is.

But basically, in there, there was a Bob Marley uprising reggae eight track in there, and we just kind of would listen to it every day on the way to school, on the way home for school.

Marty: I fell in love with it when I was, like, 17 years old, 16 maybe.

My sister had a boyfriend who had a VW bug, and I was enamored by this car of his, a purple VW bug.

And he had the eight-track of a Bob Marley and the Wailers record called Rastaman Vibration.

And we played that eight-track in rotation every time I went, it's a own... We had another one, Steve Miller or something, but that Bob Marley and the Wailers record got so much play, and I was studying it like, almost like the guy was talking to me, you know.

I mean, no pop artist said the things that Bob Marley said, it was so profound.

And even as a young boy, I was like, this is really different.

Peni: So my first exposure to reggae was I was 13 years old.

It was the day after my birthday party, was a big birthday party.

I had two cassette tapes.

The first cassette tape was Michael Jackson, Thriller.

The second cassette tape was Robert Nesta Marley, Legend.

You know the cliche thing, Bob Marley, everybody says that they learn reggae music, and Bob Marley is the first name that comes up.

But then as you start diving in, there's Dennis Brown, there's Peter Tosh, there's all the reggae generals after that.

And then, from then, it was just, it was on.

Sunaina: In the early 80s, you had bands who were playing a wide variety of music in nightclub contexts.

And many of these bands started out as Hawaiian music bands that then incorporated reggae into what they were doing.

Honolulu and really Oahu more generally, had a thriving nightclub scene for decades, and there were clubs that catered to Kanaka Maoli and locals more broadly.

And the same thing kind of happened there, as in backyards, where the audience wanted reggae, so bands obliged.

You had bands who were playing musical genres that were meant to appeal to a Hawaiian audience, particularly a working class Hawaiian audience, and reggae just slipped right in.

I'm thinking of bands and artists like Brother Noland and even Peter Moon band.

Billy V: Yes it took a hold here.

But then artists also evolved into other things as well.

Some of the items from the Tropical Storm album Island Love, little bit of a reggae beats.

Some of the younger ones were loving that sound and were gravitating towards that.

Daniel: And I remember, you know, the first efforts by the Hawaiian, by these Hawaiian artists.

Yeah, I know I wasn't really into it.

I didn't really care for it that much, but I appreciated their enthusiasm and their love for reggae music, they truly would try to interpret reggae in their own way.

Sunaina: In the very early 80s, you also had artists and bands forming who were solely devoted to reggae bands like Cool Runnings, who were doing just straight reggae, influenced by Jamaican and British reggae without the Hawaiian influence.

They formed the beginning of what would become the underground root scene.

Craig: By the late 70s, some record companies were putting out a few mainstream kind of reggae, including Bob Marley right, who was the biggest star at that time in the reggae world.

I'd go into Records Hawai'i, this place on Pi'ikoi.

Sunaina: A group of friends started spending time together at a store called Records Hawai'i, and this included Craig Okino and Chris Planas.

Craig: I'd look for, you know, reggae in there and the guy at the counter started asking me, "Oh, you're into reggae?

You know, I'm, I'm curious about that," and he had a studio upstairs from the record store.

Sunaina: Eventually, they started hanging out above the store, listening to reggae records.

Craig: He said, "Oh, I, you know, I have a guitar, you know.

I want to, if you want to jam, because I used to be in some rock bands in college right.” And I said, "Okay, sure."

And he got all this, these other friends of his that he knew, musician people.

Sunaina: And then they actually started a band called Yellow Peril, ironically, because many of the members were Asian.

Craig: That was what we called ourselves.

I mean, we never played anywhere or anything.

At that time, I also discovered, oh, there's this reggae radio show on KTUH, and I was surprised that anybody had even even knew about it.

And that was Daniel Warner, the Daniel the Lion.

And so I contacted him, and, you know, made friends with him.

(music plays) Ah You shouldn't turned the radio on.

Back to Mr.

DJ, make it sway the reggae way Kimo: As far as I know, the first reggae show at KTUH was probably one of the all time best.

Sunaina: This KTUH show was called Daniel in the Lion's Den, and it was run by Daniel Warner from 1979 to 1985.

Daniel: I was a student at the University of Hawai'i, and this guy approached me and he said, "Oh, my name is so and so."

But he said, "You know, I do a reggae show on KTUH, the university radio station.

But I'm leaving and a little while, and I was wondering if you wanted to continue doing the show?"

Yeah, that's how I got started with the radio show on KTUH.

Sunaina: Warner had amassed this huge collection of reggae records, which he bought from London, New York and even Kingston at one point.

Kimo: He went to Woolworths Ala Moana, and he was flipping the record bins, and he saw all these Jamaican records on the Studio One Label.

He had no idea what they are.

He kind of bought them on a lark to sort of interest.

And so he got all these classic Studio One titles.

Daniel: And I have no idea why Woolworths had them, but yeah, they did.

Craig: He had a ridiculous amount of records.

He, like, bought everything that guy.

I used to go over to his place and we'd trade, you know, exchange records and everything.

And through Daniel, because of his reggae radio show, he knew these other people in Honolulu that or on Oahu that they were into reggae but and they wanted to play.

Sunaina: Jamaican and Caribbean nationals who were serving in the US military, found the show, and then they started coming to the show and would actually DJ live on air.

Jah Gumby: There's kind of an untold story.

I mean, just an untold history that, I mean, there was a lot of Jamaicans in Hawai'i, you know.

A lot of them were in the armed forces in the early 80s, and they had their own functions, you know, that maybe not known to the regular population, but they were persevering and, you know, representing their culture here.

I see them as as a big influence on what we know now.

Kimo: Daniel would get Jamaican GIs, who were stationed on Schofield to come on the show, I believe he was living in Wahiawa at the time, so he was friends with them.

They'd come on the show, he would put on the popular rhythms of the day, and they would toast over those rhythms.

It was he has some great, great tapes.

This was also before, I believe, the US military did drug testing, so there was quite a bit a ganja smoke in the studio, but it was a real live dance, all Jamaican vibe that as far as I know has never been topped, you know, probably anywhere.

Craig: That's how we met Maacho, who, at that time his name was Egy, E-G-Y, because his real name was Eglin.

(Maacho singing) Craig: And he was from Kingston, Jamaica.

And then we met Sluggo, a singer who he said he was from St.

Thomas I wasn't sure about that.

But one time he had a friend visit him, his friend goes, "Oh, no, that's Kevin.

We were from Ohio."

You know, but I don't know.

He had a thick patois accent and everything, so I don't know.

And then Bongo was a sax player who was all dreaded out, but he was from Philadelphia.

And then Rankin' Scroo was a guy, he was in the army.

Maacho, Egy and Scroo were in the army.

Daniel: And those two guys, those two, they're Jamaicans, both in the military, Schofield, their ranking.

Scroo would come to the radio station, and he would bring his Jamaican, other Jamaican friends along.

And they came from Schofield, they came from Kaneohe Marine Base, they came from Pearl Harbor, and tried to show their abilities on the mic.

Craig: So we got together with those guys through Daniel, and then, you know, everything kind of clicked.

It sounded pretty good.

So we decided, oh, let's, let's form a band.

And our first gig was at Kapi'olani Park in the bandstand.

I think it was ‘81 sometime and then we started playing around town.

We played at The Wave, played at 3D in Waikiki, it was a punk bar dive place, and we played a few other spots around town, and played the Haleiwa Theatre.

Used to practice at the Haleiwa Theatre.

But, you know, I don't think a lot of I mean, we didn't pack them in when we had our concerts, I mean.

(music playing) Craig: You know we didn't really, weren't really around that long.

We're only maybe a year before, you know, we kind of split up to do well, I won't go into all the different reasons why, but... Jah Gumby: Jamaicans who had moved here like Maacho, Rankin' Scroo & Ginger, they were the first that were kind of down here attempting to put out music, you know, and they were big inspirations for me, growing up.

Maacho: Yeah, cmon it's here.

I'm Maacho.

Strictly roots rock reggae, night and day... Narrator: Born in Jamaica, Maacho began singing reggae in London in 1969.

Stationed here in the military in the 1970s, he returned to live and share his music and beliefs.

Maacho: Reggae music has a lot to say about the culture, not just one culture, but many cultures, because it's based on the natural things around you.

For example, the birds, the bees, right?

Reggae music says a lot about that.

For the human being, it's what goes on within the life form of this system, like real stuff, reality, life, death and all other things.

(music playing) Jah Gumby: I wanted to show you some examples of the roots reggae that was coming out of Hawai'i, like early 80s style up to, like the early 90s.

Some crucial tapes... This is Rankin' Scroo & Ginger, Hawai'i 1984; this a brother they call Maacho, you know some of his early music, Jamaica to Hawai'i, he's been doing this thing long time in Hawai'i; Izah Blue and Isis, Maakah, uh they were called Roots Natty Roots; this a band from Kailua, Dread Ashanti, that was around in the early 90s, got a great singer from one of the Caribbean islands named Ital... Some nice examples of Hawai'i reggae.

Sunaina: Over the next few years, there were various configurations of these artists playing in different bands.

And some of these band names were like Crucial Youth, Wareka, The Movers, Maacho & The Cool Connection and the worldbeat band, Pagan Babies.

(instrumental) (playing Where's the Party) Years ago, when I came home to my hometown, the airport was a tangled place, of steel and sound.

I headed to ocean to escape the pace, though the skies were blue I could not find a space.

The beach was full of people greased to fry well done, competing for a towel space beneath the sun.

I dove into the water to clear my mind, changes that I see have left me far behind.

I have been gone too long finding my way.

And when the sun goes down I want to say.

Tell me (tell me) where's the party?

I'm in need of a celebration, righteous inebriation.

Tell me (tell me) where's the party?

Can you take me there?

Can you show me where?

Bill: It's nice to be able to bring some something to people, something new to people, you know, and open them up to where a lot of the popular music that we listen to today in this country, the roots, is the same spot.

Africa for, you know, for a lot of it.

Chris Planas: Yeah.

I mean, you know, blues and jazz and rhythm and blues and funk and hip hop, you know, they all have roots in African music as well.

Nowadays, even when we do an African tune that we've been doing for a long time, I mean, elements of other kinds of musics creep into our rendition of it because of who we are as individuals and who we are as a group.

Craig: It's a good thing for people to appreciate other people's music, and because that's like a doorway to their culture, really.

If you understand, if you can appreciate someone's music, you can appreciate that person and you know that culture, which may be, may have been alien to you before, but you know the music's like a little window on that.

Elyce: There's all kinds of music to appreciate, music comes in like all forms, all styles, there's beauty in every form, every style.

Dave: I grew up in New York, but I came to Hawai'i the first time back in the 70s.

It was more Kalapana, C&K, Olomana, Peter Moon, you know, this is kind of the renaissance in Hawaiian music, which I didn't really know much about it because I hadn't lived here before, but I learned quickly.

And that was the kind of stuff that you would hear on the radio, and was very popular of concerts and things like that.

So when I returned almost 10 years later, it was kind of just the beginning, I would say, of reggae.

And I would say, for me, the first album that I heard that signaled that was Brother Noland.

Brother Noland: Music is just a such a giant part of of Hawai'i, you know, no matter what kind of music, you know.

I think Hawai'i, because of the location, all the different musics from all the different cultures, visiting Hawai'i or making Hawai'i their home brought their music too.

You know, because I can remember growing up in Kalihi and being a kid running around in the streets, I would go to Ayala's, yeah, because they had like an open venue, and I would listen to the kachi kachi music of the Puerto Ricans, yeah.

Like, wow.

And get into that vibe, you know?

You go home and then my mom is teaching hula out on the patio, right, listening to that stuff, right?

And then, you know, growing up as a teenager, I'm already listening to, you know, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, you know, music soothes the soul, right?

So me, stumbling into the reggae music, well, was almost a natural thing, too.

Once I heard reggae music, I immediately connected to it, because it was island music, right?

And people growing up on islands but on another side of the Earth, yeah.

And then I started even studying that type of music, and noticing that there was so much similarity.

And it's a certain energy that I get when I walk these streets, I guess, growing up as a child and experiencing so many things that gives me the ideas to write some of the songs that I do.

The producer, John Demello, even, like Don Ho, some of the guys that were my mentors, and they actually thought Little Lullaby, the little, the song that I wrote for my oldest daughter at that time was the one.

It's got a really, kind of, like, melancholy Jimmy Buffet type style, very folky, but Coconut Girl stood out.

I guess the word would be serendipity?

I don't even know, like, what was going on.

I was just like, again, just writing, you know, that wasn't the only song I wrote at that moment.

And I always credit Kamasami Kong, one of the great, legendary DJs here in Hawai'i.

Kamasami Kong heard it, and he was the first one that said, "Wow, this is different.

This is a hit."

Kamasami: First time I heard that song, I thought, reggae, again, very interesting.

This is this is going to start a trend.

And I played that song on the radio a lot, it became a big hit here in Hawai'i, and I also put it on a record album that I produced for Japan, and it became a big hit in Japan as well.

And even to this day, whenever Noland plays that song on the stage, he always gives me credit for discovering him so Brother Noland, mahalo, thank you very much, and thank you for the great music.

Brother Noland: Okay, 1,977,000th time.

Like I said, it started off with this... And then the bass line... Right, and then the chuck... Right and then the melody... And it changed the face of Hawai'i music, yeah.

Put it all together and you got this.

(singing Coconut Girl by Brother Noland) Who take my lady from the tropical island?

Who take my lady to the Hollywood scene?

Who flash the money on her body and her red lips?

Who put my baby on the shutter fall trip?

Say goodbye to your coconut girl, he local boy say goodbye.

She's a coconut girl in a high fashion world, uh.

(talking) All right, everybody in the studio, you ready?

Here we go.

(Singing) Someone's got her pin-up and her poster in the bedroom.

Lately I've been feeling like I don't have any leg room.

Goodbye coconut girl... Studio audience: Hi!

Hello!

Brother Noland: (Singing) Uh, high fashion world.

Take me to the house where the lights are on her all night.

Take me to the paradise of celluloid extreme.

Because her face on the cover of a magazine.

And she got me all shaking like old Jimmy Dean.

I wanna see the purpose of the make-up and the skin cream.

Goodbye baby.

Say goodbye to your coconut girl, he local boy say goodbye.

She's my coconut girl in a high fashion world, uh.

All right... Brother Noland: I definitely see future in all of Hawai'i's music as a, as a tool for Hawai'i's culture.

To be expanded into the other parts of the world so they can better understand what we are really about here in the island.

Just like how Jamaica and the music, you know, the reggae music has been able to hit other parts of the world already.

And people understand, if they don't understand the culture so much, they understand the beat and the rhythm and the soul of it, and you just know that it's true, it's not so plastic and cognitive.

And me as a musician, and a player, and an artist, that's what I try to do.

Pierre: I own the studio Rendez-vous Recording, in business in Hawai'i since 1980, non-stop.

I've been doing every kind of music possibly you can imagine, including the reggae who started that in the 80s.

[plays music] And I recorded everybody, I mean, so many people, and then I bumped into the rasta guys.

We had three of them, one's Maacho.

He had the name Cool Connection eventually, and he's the one who really introduced me to the reggae music and told me what was important.

Now I'm going to produce a song right there, boom, just for you.

(plays music) Okay.

I didn't know anything about reggae.

I said it was all about ting-ting-ting-ching-ching-ching Where it showed me that the bass is the most important part in reggae music.

I don't know what the song is like, we'll figure it out.

We did a recording session, and we remember all my life we spent the whole day, "Pierre bringing up the bass, Pierre bringing up the bass."

So you get bashed up with that bass for hours.

By four o'clock in the afternoon, I saw light, and I got enlightened into the reggae sound.

Suddenly you get hypnotized by the bass drive, the low stuff, and suddenly you realize what it's, what it's all about.

Now for me, now you're gonna put some drums [plays music] So it's a short song, yeah.

After that day, I got transformed, and I got what I call initiated to reggae music.

(plays music) Every reggae song in the old days had this thing in it.

(plays music) Every music that you don't relate to, they all sound the same.

It doesn't matter what it is, it all sounds the same, and it's no good, and la-di-da-di-da.

Until you get into it, I call initiated, and then suddenly you are into that world.

And this is the most fascinating part about art in general, you are in or you are out.

From the outside, yeah, it's nice, it's nice, it's okay.

When you're in, it's like, oh, and then you can listen to a reggae band.

Then we play the same chord, the same bass for seven, eight minutes, and you don't find it boring or repetitive.

It's just great the way it is.

But until you are in the game, you cannot appreciate that, and that applies to every kind of music.

So whenever somebody puts down something, it's just because they are not part of that initiation process.

Host: All right, moving right along.

The first group is from Kaimuki High School.

They want to take Hawaiian music to the top of the charts, and all of them want to be entertainers here.

Kelly, Teimoni, Bumpsy, Tivaini, they're going to be playing and singing an original song composed composed by Kelly De Lima.

Please welcome Kapena and their song Tropical Lady.

Kelly Boy: Here we are at the Waikiki Shell.

For me, this is where it all began.

Actually, it began right up the road at Kaimuki High School.

And I had to been 17, 18 years old when I first took this stage at the Waikiki Shell, so this is plenty history for me, it brings.

I mean, I'm you know, I almost like fight back tears because, you know, I just look back in my life and I think, how what a what a great honor it was at such a young age to be on this stage.

So I'm very honored.

I'm very humbled every time I step on this stage, and grateful.

My early attraction to music, and especially like the ‘ukulele, was friends of mine, we just played in the back in the back roads of Waikiki.

My dad was working 19 hour days, he was a food and beverage director for the Pacific Beach Hotel, so I had plenty time for getting into trouble.

In this case, you know, I asked him for ‘ukulele, and just without even asking twice, he got me one.

When we were kids, you know, we got into a lot of trouble, you know, especially the boys that I was playing ‘ukulele with and hanging out with, you know, we would do a lot of criminal activities.

And you know, basically music kind of gave me like an accountability in my life.

We entered the Brown Bags to Stardom, and it was a showcase of high school talent, you know.

It was the the old, the old school American Idol and Voice, and it was big.

This was before the internet, and this was before, you know, people was on Instagram and Facebook.

This was, you know, I mean, primetime, you know, the whole island knew about it.

And I had told my dad, "Hey, I like enter this contest."

And, and he said, "What contest?"

You know, he was the guy that bought me to ‘ukulele, you know.

And, you know, he knew that, you know, I was going down one bad, you know, road.

And I think him buying me this ‘ukulele kind of was his, him being kind of hopeful that maybe I would, you know what I mean, you know, find something that would, you know, steer me in the right path and, and here that, here it came.

I entered two years in a row.

My first group was with four guys, Rick Bakarsi, it was Pauly Miranda, and it was Sufengi Faitao, and these guys, is all from Kaimuki.

On this stage, that was my first year, this is with Na Leo Pilimehana, and they won that year for with Local Boys and, and the experience just was, I just, you know what I mean, I said to myself, I knew it man, when I stood on this stage, is this what I wanted to do, this one I want to where I want to be.

The following year I entered, and I met my two Tongan brothers that I would eventually, you know, establish Kapena with for 20, 20 years, the next 20 years.

It was Tivaini and Teimoni Tatofi.

We met in high school, grew up together, actually from intermediate into high school, and that's where we first started.

(singing Tropical Lady by Kapena & Three Plus) She's my lady, she's my baby, she's my woman, Lord above.

And I'll love her till the end of time.

Can you hear me?

Said I'll love her till the end of time.

Kamasami: Well the name Brown Bags to Stardom came from Jeff Coelho's wife, Leslie, and it was her concept that since kids take their, high school kids take their lunches to school in a brown paper bag.

That's when we would hold the rallies, or the talent shows when the kids were having their lunch break, and some of them became big stars.

Kelly Boy: I mean, we started practicing, and my dad would sit us down and make us rehearse, and rehearse and rehearse.

And we were so hungry.

I mean, we were so hungry to play anywhere.

(crowd cheering) Sunaina: So after the Brown Bags, Tiva, myself and Teimoni, we had a gig at the Polynesian Pub in Waikiki, and we would start playing that.

We started playing that six nights a week.

And we would play like six hours a night, brah, no pay.

We would just get tips.

But, brah, we was raking in the tips man, back in those days because, you know, the place was packed.

Hawai'i was one of the last states that 18 year olds could still drink, you know.

And brah da place was loaded, so we learned this genre, like, you know what I mean, Margaritaville and Under the Boardwalk.

I mean, we had this genre of music that was playing, you know what I mean, that we had to, forced to learn, you know what I mean, so that we could have these buggahs drink, and we could make, you know what I mean, money, you know.

So soon after that, we started at a place called Sparky's Lounge on Kapi'olani Boulevard.

Now, Sparky's was where all the locals went.

Now, you're talking about all the other entertainers that played all around Waikiki and all through that area, but Sparky was late, you know, it was a late one, so we'd be playing late, and all these entertainers coming down, and then they're hearing that, "wow, this young, new band, Kapena is playing down here, and wow, they're packing in the place, you know."

Pierre: I made the very first recording of Kapena.

They showed up, the three of them, the two Tongan pillars, you know, and Kelly Boy, and they showed up to my studio and I wired everything on headphones, we went straight to a cassette.

And we recorded the cassette, A and B, full on in one afternoon, one song after another, and backup vocals and all, I still have that cassette, the very first recording they made, that thing was unbelievable.

They went to another studio to record their first album, and it became a big hit.

And after that, I did a lot of their hit songs.

I did, like the Reggae Train, the super fast bubble (beat sounds) that was me.

Kelly Boy: Three days before our first album, my dad pushed us, and rehearsed us, and made us do everything that you know we could possibly do to be the best that we could be.

And three days before that recording, he passed away at Queen's Hospital.

I remember leading up to it though, he was always there with us, and it was a live recording at Sparky's Lounge, because they really didn't, we was a new band, they never, like take one chance of putting us into the, to the main studio, and the thing costing, you know what I mean, uku pile money, you know.

So they, they put us in and we did a live album.

And three days before that, he passed away, and we had a, you know, a little word of, you know, a little silence, you know, a minute of just silence as we honored him.

And the first album was named after or dedicated to him.

And it was, it was really, it was one really tough period of my life.

I was 19 years old when I did my first album.

And my dad was my identity.

My dad was, you know what I mean, he was the proof that I was Hawaiian.

You know what I mean, he was, he was the one that taught me how to play my instrument, groomed the band, you know.

So plenty emotions that day when we did our first album, Satisfaction Guaranteed was the name of that one.

And after that, man, it was like, sky's the limit.

(Butch Helemano playing and singing) Jah Gumby: When it comes down to Hawai'i reggae, I'd have to big up Butch Helemano, because he had an original sound, and it was roots.

Kimo: I know Butch Helemano was somebody who was playing live roots reggae from back in the day, probably late 70s, I'm guessing.

Butch: Came back in 1979, started a band here.

I moved next door to Danny Couch, and Danny Couch was a drummer for Don Ho.

So Danny came into my house one day, completely empty, but it was full of instruments, he goes, "what kind of music are you playing?"

I said, "Well, it's reggae music."

He goes, "Well, would you mind coming to my, my job where I'm at and we can put you."

So he put me to work at Don Ho's Suck ‘Em Up Show, and I was the opening act for the Suck ‘Em Up Show.

It started at midnight, went all the way to four in the morning, $5 all you can eat and all you can drink.

And it was pretty wild.

But people would come there and they'd go, I hear the lady ask her husband, "That's not Don Ho, what kind of music are these guys playing?"

Pierre: So back then, there was very new, reggae music was new in town, we had the guys from Jamaica.

They were playing the reggae, their stuff, and then Butch came up.

I forgot how I met him, why he contacted me, again.

I was charging so cheap, and the stuff sounded decent, you know.

So the bang for the buck was there.

So Butch contacted me, and we started working together, and we've done many songs together.

Butch: When I came to Hawai'i there was no reggae playing here.

There's no reggae on the radio.

As a matter of fact, I was the first reggae artist to actually record an actual full reggae album here in the state of Hawai'i, or first native Hawaiian to do that in the state of Hawai'i.

Jah Gumby: I want to show you a rare piece of Hawai'i reggae history.

This is Butch Helemano's first LP, entitled Sugar and Spice.

And to my knowledge, it's the only Butch Helemano full release that was available or put out on vinyl.

This is Sugar and Spice, you know, genuine Hawaiian Reggae.

(music) Wave Rider, you got one thing on your mind.

Butch: First album I did here in Hawai'i was Sugar and Spice, yeah, yeah.

But prior to that, I did several 45's here in Hawai'i The recordings, actually recorded here first were actually 45 rpms.

Pierre: Butch was a trip and a half.

He was doing his thing, it was, only he made that sound.

Jah Gumby: His album, Reggae Fevah meant a lot to me when I was growing up.

Peni: My first local reggae was Lover's Moon by Butch Helemano.

My first take on island reggae.

Sunway: They always said that that Butch was like the godfather of local reggae.

Butch was the guy who was jumping off of, you know, giant amps.

He was on the drum riser.

He was a super showman.

Butch: Well right now, I manage an airport for the State of Hawai'i, the maintenance department over there, Dillingham Airfield, and I operate a law enforcement and civilian firearm training certification school.

I still perform on YouTube, because, you know, when we do our videos for our training classes, I do the background music cause it gives me an opportunity to, you know, play all the instruments that I grew up playing live.

But it was, when I quit music, I had to quit it cold turkey, just like an alcoholic, you know, not having a can opener or a drug and not having a needle.

Because when I quit, I just overnight said stop, you know.

When I won the album of the year, I said, you know, that's a ho'ailona, that's, that's a sign for me, now's your time to get out.

Although I didn't play music to win any awards, but that was the best time for me to say, "Okay, it's time to get out."

At least I got something out of all the years of hard work, you know.

Cameraman: Hey there brah, Everybody's loving you now.

Chee braddah Butch, the man over here.

Pierre: Give one more track, and then we go home, we're done.

You have many, many people, musicians.

They hate reggae with passion.

They say, "Oh man, reggae, oh no, that's the devil."

Okay, well, again, they are not initiated.

They never experience that initiation.

Just like a religion.

You have a religion, you embrace a religion, sorry, you, you find all the components they match what you're looking for, and boom, and then you end up going to whatever church that is.

(plays music) Okay, brother, we are in.

(plays music) Okay, you got a song.

You see what I'm saying?

So it's all about initiation, but hating reggae music so much, I don't know, you know.

Kelly Boy: (singing Crazy by Kapena) I met a boy who didn't know which way to turn, which way to go.

You didn't like girls, you didn't like books, didn't like go to school.

But when he said he didn't like reggae, I had to lose my cool.

What you talkin' 'bout?

You say you don't like the Reggae beat?

What you talkin' 'bout?

You say you don't like the Reggae beat?

You must be cray-ay-ay-yeah-ah, cra-ay-zy.

You must be cray-ay-ay-yeah-ah, cra-ay crazy you must be.

I met a man who didn't know which way to turn which way to go.

He didn't like cars, he didn't like books, he didn't like anything fast.

But when he said he didn't like Reggae, in his face I had to laugh.

What you talkin' 'bout?

You say you don't like the Reggae beat?

What you talkin' 'bout?

You don't like the Reggae beat?

I said what you talkin' 'bout?

You say you don't like the Reggae... What you talkin' 'bout?

Ooh.

What you talkin' 'bout?

Lina Girl: Oh, are we going to get into the Jawaiian thing now?