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We'd like to say aloha and welcome to Lani Records

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We are here at ʻAulani on the west side of Oʻahu, and we are here with Kama Hopkins. Hey aloha. Aloha everyone.

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We'd like to speak with Kama about his family life family traditions. He's very deep rooted on musical

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Influences in his family. We all know them here in the islands and

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Let's start with

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The first person in you guys family that ever like really

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Well, yeah, I do that. Oh

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I think music

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Yeah, I think in in my generation well telling telling everyone a little bit about my family and the way we grew up

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Most people know Auntie Genoa Keawe, you know, and I was fortunate...

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So, Auntie Genoa, her oldest sister...

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was my great-grandmother Esther [name unclear].

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They were all Adolpho/Adolfo [spelling to confirm]; they all came from the Adolpho/Adolfo family.

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When we were growing up I

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Learned the story of how my grandma moe B

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Cahabara started to play music my grandma is one third of a group called the bee sisters

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And if most of you out there have heard the song. Oh, we're going to a who kilo

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They are the ones that first recorded it with John Camilo. I'll meet up

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and

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For for us in our family, you know growing up I spent many a day in my grandparents house and

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We didn't we didn't know that Hawaiian culture was in any type of trouble

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I mean my when my grandma passed away, you know, she had been playing music for over 70 plus years

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And she died at the age. I think that was 94, you know, but

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You know for 70 70 plus years of that she was she was playing music, you know

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Professionally and started singing even before that

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so

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But for for me growing up we grew up around music we grew up around hula and I was actually lucky on both sides of my family

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The Hopkins side as well

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good fun

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Musicians

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We had composers one. I think one of the more famous ones

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Was a lady by the name of anti noi noi. She was my grandfather's sister

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And she had a couple of different last names, you know, yes

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Some did, you know, but at one time she was one-third of the Halle Kulani girls

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Wow, so she she was also in that

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That group so I had music music surrounded me my whole life

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music in hula, but

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When I was a child, I actually did not want to have anything to do with music

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You know, I mean because we were surrounded by it when birthdays came

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Holidays came we could not eat any cake. We could not open any presents. We could not do anything because

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Grandma was out playing music. So we had to wait for grandma to come home

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And then sometimes we had to wait till the day after you know

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but

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You know growing up

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Going to school eventually at Kamehameha

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Dancing more hula for your uncle actually, you know and and the Kapaholo Kamehameha

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I got out of my school

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You know, but being being around there singing in the concert glee club

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My dad took me to sing barbershop music. So I was singing that when I was in intermediate school

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You know, so singing singing was just part of my life

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And I really enjoyed it, but I never really learned to play a lot until I went to go work

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For an uncle of mine that I never really knew at the time, but got to know very well

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His name is Cybridges, you know out at the Polynesian Cultural Center. So I got to play a lot more ʻukulele out there

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but you know, it wasn't until

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The early 2000s

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When a friend of mine, you know Keola Chan. Oh boy

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He heard me sing one or two songs with my with my cousin Pomeka and

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You know, he said hey, why don't you come play down play, you know down at the shorebird restaurant

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Yeah, and so he started me on it, but this is a funny story

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So he saw me playing music. He saw the kind of music I played I sang songs that my uncle Gary

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Uncle Sam

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Played and sang and so he really wanted

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Songs like that to be done at the shorebird. I think I'm a little strolling and strolling music was still big back then

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Yeah, you know and so and then this was like I said in the early 2000s and

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When we're driving down, he came to pick me up one night came to take me down

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We're driving down. He says, okay here. We're playing these keys. These are the songs we play

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You know into a swing vamp here and they said that I looked at him. I said, what's a swing band?

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He says, oh, you know, you play this chord this chord this person. I don't I don't want to play this chord

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He looked at me with a look like this like confused. Yeah confused

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Yeah, but you're your momie

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Bees grandson and you just played and you sang well. Yeah, but I mean I don't I don't play music

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What and literally as we're driving and this is very bad, so don't copy

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But he was driving his Volkswagen van that you have to shift

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So he's driving with his knee and he told me to give him the ʻukulele

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So I give him the ʻukulele and he's teaching me as we're driving from Kāneʻohe down to Waikīkī

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How to play these courts so I take it and I try to say no no no here like this

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So he plays it again

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Yeah, and so I practice but I got the gist of it and that night I played

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You know in these different keys that I don't normally play in you know

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He had to teach me all these courts, but it was super fun

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How long was it right from the house soon? It was it was really only about a little more than a half hour

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So it was really quick cost. Yeah, but not no pun intended. Yeah, but after that night

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He sent me to another friend to go really learn how to play ʻukulele and even though this friend says don't tell anybody

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I thought you ought to play. Oh, I know but uh, I went to Kamuela Kimokeo's house

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So his dad Uncle Kimo Kimokeo was actually the one that kill a call and I'll who had Kamuela

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Teach me and so Kamuela and I we started to play together the shortbread restaurant. Here's the funny story

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So, you know before before Keola sent me to the Kimo Kimokeo's house

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Kamuela and I first met I went to pick him up. I used to drive this my auntie's beat up

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Nissan truck that had rust, you know in it and and Kamuela saw the truck and he said, oh, how are we going to like you?

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It's all right in my truck

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Just put your guitar right in the back and as we're driving on the freeway

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Here comes the Ross, you know flying off of the truck and we're laughing and Kamuela is like, oh my gosh

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I think I'm gonna die, you know with this guy and

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Kamuela looked at me and thought I was a falsetto singer

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You know, and I didn't know how to sing anything else but falsetto. We really never met, you know before that

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So in this first time meeting and first time playing together

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I strung my ʻukulele the first time and I think I sang

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And Kamuela looked at me when he's playing

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Yeah, he confessed to me at the break. He said, you know, I thought you're gonna be this guy

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That I just could not listen to all night long only singing this one type of wave, but yeah

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But he loves you

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But he he said it became the easiest, you know easiest thing to do

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just to sing and have fun and

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And so, you know, so it was after that that that's when Keola said, hey, so you've already played with Kamuela a couple times

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Yeah, he's so good. It's a good

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Because I'm gonna send you to, you know, their their family to learn how to play the ʻukulele because you got to practice

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I'm like, oh boy. Oh, okay. All right. All right

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And I and I learned and of course uncle Kimo being a student of Kahawanu Lake, you know the the teaching

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He made they made it fun

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But I

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Had to learn and I had him right became a better player

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I became a better player and then I got sent to Doug Tolentino

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After that, you know, so I went to see Doug Poʻolouas [confirm spelling] as I call him and and you know, he was

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You know, he was teaching teaching me about the differences between using your left hand and your right hand, you know strumming

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Making sure you have good chord placement when to do it. Why to do it, you know

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The same things uncle Kimo was teaching me, but uncle Kimo and Kamuela just basically got me from zero to you know, like 90 within like

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A month and a half two months. Yeah, crash course of how to play all the different chords

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Absolutely. And so it became so fun. And then with Doug, you know, there was fine-tuning, you know, here and there

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I would ask him, okay, I'm playing this chord, but I don't know why and then he said, okay

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This is why but you know, you will learn as a musician that

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Depending on who you play with, you can't always play those chords, right?

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You know, there are some musicians you play with that they don't know how to complement that style of playing

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So you just simplify your playing. It's not that it's junk or wrong or anything. It's a different style. You follow along

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You know, so and and for all of you listening, that's why I enjoy playing with, you know, Keao folks and some of our other friends

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You know, because everyone has such a different style

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Of playing and so I get to learn so much, you know, but it was around that time 2001

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where I was actually invited to play with the group ʻAleʻa

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because

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Yeah, I was invited to play with the group ʻAleʻa

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but um

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A group Kilinahe

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Was was you know, they were already playing. Yeah, and another friend of mine, Kawika McGuire

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He was he left the group and and it was myself. I came in as ʻukulele player

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Keola Chan jumped on the bass and we had two guitar players Kekoa Kaluhiwa and Kanaʻi Nakamura and

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We we were Kilinahe at the time. We won a

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Uh, a talent contest at the willows when still open. Yeah, and so we got to play and I had to answer ʻAleʻa

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And it was a gonzo

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Ryan Gonzalez, he called me. He said hey

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so

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We heard you playing with your group. You sound pretty good, but are you gonna play with us or not?

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And I said oh, hi, you know, I got I'm committed. I mean, we won the contest or we're gonna play

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So I probably gonna stick with Kilinahe. I hope that's okay. And and you know, but but ʻAleʻa

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I mean, they were already good and they took off. This is when they went from four just to three

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Yeah, you know, and so so it was it was totally fun and later on

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The two groups later on which later became Holunape and then they would they would merge here and there to help

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you know help

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Share music with at different occasions, you know, so we I mean, we've had great relationships for 20 plus years

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25 26 years. And they were playing before me. Wow

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but

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But you know, so in in those early 2000s, you know, Kilinahe was the group

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We went into record

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One thing led to another

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You know, we ended up not finishing our recording at that time

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Uh, we uh, Keola left the group at the time and it was just me and Kanaʻi because Kekoa had left earlier

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But this is when another friend of ours, Jeff Au Hoy

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Came in, you know, and he he was playing as part of Kilinahe playing steel

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I mean, you know, the music I was able to learn in in that time between 2000

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and 2002 or three

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I mean, I went from like I said, same with the ʻukulele playing from zero to 90 or 100

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You know, the same was true for learning how to play Hawaiian music. And that's funny because that's funny because

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You learned all your music from your friends