Grammy-nominated songwriter Jah Maoli mentors up-and-coming reggae musicians in Hawaii and continues to work on his long-awaited album

Photo courtesy of Jah Maoli.

Dailyreggae.com caught up with Jah Maoli to learn about his over 15-year career dedicated to reggae music, how his work with J Boog led to a Grammy nomination, and his current focus mentoring up-and-coming musicians. Jah Maoli continues to work on his full album and plans to launch The Hawaiian Pakalolo Company in California this year.

What inspired you to become a musician and start putting music out there? Were you always playing music growing up or was it something that happened later?

I first started off mimicking the commercials on TV. Long story short, Hawaiian is my first language, and I learned how to speak English by listening to the radio commercials and watching Heathcliff, the cartoon cat. I started mimicking stuff from there and the memory started catching on.

Radio in Hawaii is very repetitive to get their ratings, so I’m coming across these songs eight times a day. By the fifth time it comes around, I got it down to the second verse. This is early to mid-'90s, where we were still recording songs off the radio on tape. We’d put a piece of paper in the little square indention on the bottom of the tape, press play, and then play and pause at the same time and you end up recording. So, I ended up doing that, rewinding it back and then individually playing and stopping, so I could write down the lyrics. It helped me better understand the song. I would know songs that kids older than me would know, but not as thorough as I would.

Growing up we’d have these family functions where my cousins would have their classmates come over and party. We’d barbeque and they’d bring out ukuleles, guitars, and bass and we even had a drum set one time. My brothers, cousins and I were all playing, and I’d be like man, I didn’t know any of those songs, because they were all local songs. I was on to some R&B and rap song memorization. They brought me the love for island music.

Once we moved in together, that’s when Uncle Fiji’s album dropped, Born and Raised. To see the plethora of island music at that time in ’96, hearing it on the radio, and watching my cousins play it, and I was like ‘huh’. I’m going to do the same thing. To this day I don’t know a single chord. I’ll follow my cousin and them, but as soon as they catch on that I’m learning quickly, they’ll start moving up the scale and doing some crazy tricks. That’s a Hawaiian thing to do. To disguise or challenge someone that looks up to you as a musician. To challenge their ear, to not be so heavily based on music theory, but very much in tune with the emotion of playing. The feel as we people would say. That was pretty much my upbringing in childhood through music.

Who were your musical influences growing up?

While I was a kid, my cousins brought me up on Aswad, Steel Pulse, UB40, Yellowman, Super Cat. I had no clue. I just thought everything was just one genre, not broken into different categories like reggae and dancehall. In high school, a local group, Ooklah The Moc, came out. They were very influential throughout the surfing community. Just sub local culture here in Hawaii. They played a very big part in the rootical style, as far as Hawaii’s approach on it. There are a few members from The Green that came up on top of this scene, Zion and Ikaika. They had their bands. Everyone had their band, so there was a different section of island music. A whole new roots side to it. We have the island contemporary, what they call, radio contemporary reggae style. Then you’ve got the really heavy roots reggae music addressing Hawaiian issues. Not so many of the radio songs were touching up on that and I liked how each time they would play the songs about Hawaiian issues, or just represent that sort of feeling of struggle. The crowd would roar.

Wherever they went it was a big following. It wasn’t just Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. It attracted a broad audience. You can identify the uniqueness. John Davis, the drummer. James “Ras Bird” LaPierre, the lead singer. The bass lines of “Jah Gumby”. Then Jah Gumby goes off and creates this whole crazier sound with Father Psalms and with Kali Navales and Sistah Micky. In the reflection of their work, there were a lot of youths. My generation, we’re trying to emulate that.

Tell us how you started creating your sound as a recording artist and about your collaboration with J Boog.

I ended up recording with Jah Gumby a few times. It wasn’t good, but it was good to learn, and then I perfected my sound and lyrics. I started taking a Super Cat approach, a Mavado sound. I try to talk about Hawaiian issues in a dancehall format rather than a roots rocker style format.

Even though I’m a huge roots rocker style fanatic. I’ve never had the chance to show that side of my sound. Everything has always been dancehall, a clever wordplay cadence, lyricism, and melody trickery here and there.

In the midst of that, somehow J Boog and his guys would finish their rehearsals and always come to my show. I don’t know if they always came to my show, but it just felt like every time I played the boys were always there. I remember I started one time and then all the boys started coming in and I was thinking, “What!”. I did my thing here and there.

Boog reached out to my bredjan, DJ Wastefa, who I was living with. I had released Hawaiian Pakalolo. We made a music video and everybody was talking about it to the point where the radio converted my YouTube video to an MP3 and started playing it on the radio without my consent (laughs). I was like, “Wow, I really am on the radio!” I guess it was the timing. Boog came across the traction I was getting on the radio and this animated video that my friends put together. People were talking about it to where Boog asked about doing a remix.

Here I am, a westside boy on Oahu. I fly out and I’m going to do this remix with him. I open the door and in the living room sitting down is Peetah Morgan, the lead singer of Morgan Heritage. I’m thinking like, “Oh man. I don’t think he knows that I have three DVDs that my Dad bought of him from Tower Records.” I would study that. I would study Reggae on the River. I would go to Rhasta Headquarters. My Dad was a big influence on me. He played a big part in grabbing footage, exposing me to what the standard was, and I tried my best to emulate, mimic and memorize that.

I’d memorize it. Memorize the feel. Then go through the creative process and let it go. That way when I’m in the situation, where Peetah Morgan is right there, it’s ready to go right then.

People were like, “This is garbage.” Peetah Morgan said, “What do you mean? This isn’t garbage. This is a hit.”

Peetah Morgan said, “Let me take this song and release it in Jamaica and watch it hit number one for thirteen weeks.” I’m thinking, “Nah, this is crazy!” So, J Boog and me are smiling. Morgan asked Boog to jump in to record on Hawaiian Pakalolo and we also had Spawnbreezie on the song. I also ended up writing a few songs for J Boog.

We saw that you were nominated for a Grammy. Tell us about that!

While I’m creating, I’m not thinking about Grammys. I left Wash House to release my own music and I hadn’t communicated with Boog for a long time, because he was on tour. A few folks started reaching out to me, but I was going to the beach every day. I wasn’t returning people’s calls. And then Detour Posse’s drummer, Zeb, lands here and is calling me up. “Hey brother, I’m here on your side of the island. We’ll pick you up!” We went to Yokohama Bay, pretty much the west point of Oahu, where there is no road going out there. We’re cruising and he answers a call. I’m thinking it’s probably one of his friends. Then he goes, “All right, see you soon.” So, I’m thinking, oh someone is coming. So, I ask him, “Who is that?” He goes, “Oh that’s Boog”.

A half an hour passes by and then all of a sudden, you see this maroon Tahoe coming in and it’s Boog and Ray Ledger, another well-known Polynesian and Island Reggae artist. And I’m like, “Woah that was fast.” They said, “Come one cuz, we got to work on the album”. I’m in a tank top, and I’ve got on my surf shorts. I say, “Bro if we are going to do this overnight, I got to go home to grab clothes.” We grabbed clothes and then went up to the Wash House in Pūpūkea. I ended up staying there for three weeks with Boog and Peetah Morgan.

We made songs like Live Up and My Audio. We had no clue that we were going to be nominated in 2017 for Best Reggae Album going up against Damian Jr. Gong Marley. We’re just a bunch of island boys – riddim, throwdown, boom, go. I just tried to make it as fire as possible for my brother you know. I would never imagine that it would get to as far as it’s gotten. 

My cousin, Jr King from Common Kings, was also nominated that year in the same category. It was Boog’s album, Wash House Ting, Common King’s album, Jr Gong’s Stony Hill, and some others. Stony Hill ended up taking the Grammy. We ended up getting a certificate for the nomination. I thought it was a cool process. Now that I know that we are trying to aim for the Grammys, the production from start to finish is customized as much as we can to make our brother stand out.

What recent collaborations have you worked on?

Recently, I worked on a song for Boog’s upcoming album. I haven’t been super busy, because of the pandemic. We are just trying to keep everyone safe.

I’ve been working with two artists - Walt is a Tongan artist born and raised in Oahu and a Samoan recording artist out of Kahli named Isa’ako.

Recently, I worked on a song with Isa’ako called Let Me featuring Fiji. I’ve been more behind the scenes because I’ve been trying to generate capital through opening my own cannabis brand in Southern California, The Hawaiian Pakalolo Company.

With the new company, I have full capabilities of creating and collaborating to enhance it and put out a greater product. Whether it’s a video, apparel, or a song. We have a great opportunity to present Hawaiian urban culture into the cannabis space. While we’re waiting for the capital to jumpstart this company, I’m focused on helping other artists on the way.

Boog’s album is dropping soon. I’m also working with Tenelle. This project is crossing over into the mainstream, but her background is reggae. I’ve dedicated at least 15 years and the farthest I have gotten is the Grammy certificate as a songwriter, and I feel like I would have never imagined that.

Tenelle is an island reggae artist from Carson, California. She is getting established in the island reggae music industry and I feel like it’s time for a lot of us Pacific Island artists and creators to cross over and contribute to the pop, rap, and R&B genres. It’s not supported in the continental U.S. among the Polynesian community, but there is so much potential.

I came across a video, where someone is talking about Australian Polynesians and how they support each other. There is a rap group Onefour, a bunch of Samoan and Tongan kids in Australia. They ended up getting a song with A$AP Ferg from ASAP Mob, which is pretty huge.

With Tenelle, I wanted to take the same approach as with Boog, but not be restricted with reggae characteristics and stylings that go into creating a mainstream sound.

My reggae album still needs to come out, but that’s long-term.

We saw you did a song with For Peace Band as well, Massive & Crew. What was it look like working with For Peace Band? We caught up with Freddy back in December.

We were those young guys emulating the righteousness yet still bringing that party raging factor like Ooklah The Moc. We made a name for ourselves in Hawaii doing that. JC Iosia, one of their lead singers, had a group called Rootikal Riddim and I was going off as Jah Maoli at the time. Because they are so talented, they were willing to play my sets and that’s how we ended up developing this long-lasting relationship with these guys. We would hear a lot of lover’s rock like the Natti Love Joys and that actually made me feel like I was crazy. Every time we would bust their tune, it was hard and innovative and came out so long ago. We knew nothing about that style. We tried our best to place Hawaii – people call us the Underground. We try to give the Underground a good name, a good look, and a good sound.

JC moved to Guam and created For Peace Band. They tour in the reggae festivals across the mainland and I got a call about doing a collab. I hadn’t seen him in years. I finally got to see him and meet his crew. Massive & Crew is trying to bridge that gap between Honolulu and Guam. They are the only ones holding down Guam as far as island roots, rocker-style reggae.

That was my latest collab and then I did a recent collab with Likkle Jordee and Big Mox, who was on American Idol. Down here Mox is a big figure. He’s well known for being on American Idol and also being a freestyle rap artist. The only song released so far is Massive & Crew with For Peace Band.

Tell us about your latest single, Living Without You, which you released in 2019.

I created Living Without You with Kapena De Lima back when I was with EKM Records. Two doors down from the studio space we had were Kapena DeLima and Boo Print Studios. A lot of musicians would go there after hours in the parking lot. One of our friends started playing this song and I started beatboxing to my other friend. The cadence of a Steppas sort of feel.

It was Kahi Fernandez, Boog’s keyboard player now, and a famous keyboard player with the group Three Plus, a well-known contemporary group throughout Hawaii. He didn’t expect a younger guy to know Living Without You. It’s a cover of a Nohelani Cypriano song. She’s one of the divas in Hawaii. We thought it would be cool for a guy to sing it.

Kapena played it for his Mom and she loved it. Kapena’s Dad came across it. He’s one of the greatest pioneers that we have in Hawaii for what we call Jawaiian, which is Hawaiian reggae. Pena played it for Uncle Kelly Boy and Uncle Kelly Boy had big eyes. There are many great engineers, but in my time on my watch, Kapena is the fastest and was able to emulate the frequencies that I would want. We would both be taken aback by the sound that would come out just off a little adjustment on decibels, or reverb. We started going crazy with it too. He threw in the Hawaii steel guitar. Living Without You is one of those songs that I always had in the clip, but never did release.

I came out with Lyrical Killah the year before but figured it was time to take a break to let the publishing settle.

Where is your favorite place to play music in Hawaii and have you toured a lot over the years?

I’ve done a lot of tours with J Boog, Fiji, Hot Rain Band, Siaosi, Kiwini Vaitai, Laga Savea, and The Jimmy Weeks Project.

My favorite place to play would be Kaka’ako Waterfront Park in downtown near Honolulu Harbor. I remember a show I did there with J Boog. We performed Hawaiian Pakalolo for the first time in Hawaii in front of 10,000 plus. It may have seemed small to some folks, but in Hawaii that’s big! That’s a lot of people.

It was dark, so I hit the stage. For some reason, they flick on the middle section and you just see hands coming at you and you think, “What is this?” So I moved to the dark area to the left side and they turned that light on. I’m thinking, “Brah, keep the light off”. So, I go to the right side and they turn that section on. They are turning it on and off wherever I move. I go to the middle and these guys flip all the lights on the crowd and wow that changed my life.