Exotic and tropical are words that are overused in the descriptions of music from foreign cultures -- they are more appropriate for tourist brochures. However, with musicians set to tour Japan from Hawaii, Bali and Congo, those descriptions are actually fairly fitting, and should provide the perfect soundtrack for the summer.
Hapa has been one of Hawaii's major musical exports since the band's 1993 debut album swept the following year's Hoku awards, the Hawaiian equivalent of the Grammys. Hapa, meaning "half-half" or "ethnically mixed," consists of New Yorker Irish American Barry Flannagan and native Hawaiian Keli'i Ho'omalu Kaneali'i.
Flannagan traveled to Hawaii in 1980 in search of music, having been entranced by the power of the late, great slack key guitar player Gabby Pahuinui. A planned one-month visit turned into an open-ended stay after he met Kaneali'i at a party. At that time, while Flannagan was immersing himself in Hawaiian culture, Kaneali'i was concentrating on American music, but after jamming together a while, they found that certain musical something that just clicked into place.