Stories

It was late one night at Bevy. Me, Oliver, and Hideki were wrapping up another Soul Time in Hawaii party, something we did every month (but recently scaled back to doing semi-annually). The time was maybe 1:30am, the bar was pretty much empty by that point and the bartenders were closing up before the 2am end time. That's when, to our surprise Ted de Oliveira walked in. I'd never met the guy, only heard stories. Oliver and Ted go way back to the early 2000s, if not earlier. They grew up in the Honolulu hip-hop music scene, b-boying, DJing. Ted...

Words come in and out of trend frequently in the English language. I'm sure in other languages this is also true, but for the USA a lot of these words are related to food, technology, and slang. "Organic" is one of them, of course. The funny thing is, "organic" is how Nick Kurosawa described our recent trip to Japan; a full three weeks of going with the flow and doing what felt most natural. I totally agree. There were, on almost every single day, so many coincidences that happened to us it's been a task to recount every one of...

We're still reeling from the release party with Kakubarhythm at Daikanyama UNIT. It was amazing — probably the best concert any of us have ever experienced, as our friend Mark told us at the end of the night (grateful for that compliment, Mark!). The venue was packed, everyone was dancing, and so many of our friends from Hawaii were there, too! Can't wait for 2019 — we'll definitely be back! (Order the Coast to Coast EP on 12" vinyl here) Briefly: Hideki and I opened the night with an hour-long DJ set of Hawaii tunes to get the crowd ready...

We are super pleased to welcome O‘ahu-born soul singer Nick Kurosawa to the Aloha Got Soul label. In September 2017, our lives changed when we heard Nick's deeply heartfelt voice on a YouTube video that had just over 1,000 plays. We immediately rushed to see his next gig. From there, our friendship grew. We locked in collab gigs at the Surfjack hotel and Hawaii State Art Museum and introduced him to musicians like Maryanne Ito and Gilbert Batangan — which resulted in his first major venue performance at the Blue Note Hawaii with the Dae Han Ensemble's Tribute to J...

We set up our turntables and mixer inside the barn-like space at SALT, the mixed-use development recently built in Kaka‘ako, across from some wooden panels that would act as a canvas for artists Solomon Enos and Nicole Naone. This was just a small slice of the annual Pow! Wow! Hawai‘i, which kicks off every year with a massive block party coinciding with Honolulu Night Market. We didn't have much of a chance to walk around that evening, but I know there were plenty of food stalls, clothing merchants, jewelry stands, a beer garden or two, DJs rocking the crowds, and...