Kainani Kahaunaele - He Lai Aloha No Mi Nei

Format: 7" Vinyl
Catalogue No.: AGS069
Barcode: 787790277989
Release Date: 01 Jul 2022
Genre: Hawaiian/Blues/R&B

Limited pressing of 500 copies worldwide (Non-Returnable)

A modern Hawaiian, Sade-inspired jam with the same pioneering spirit as ""Lihue"" by Nohelani Cypriano.

Full color jacket and labels. Instrumental on the B-side.

He Lei Aloha No Mī Nei” melds the beauty of the native Hawaiian language with a heavenly R&B groove.

Reminiscent of Nohelani Cypriano’s “Lihue” — the 1979 cult classic that expanded the sound of Hawai‘i with its unexpectedly funky, tropical flavor — “He Lei Aloha No Mī Nei” charges forward into the 21st century with the same spirit. Kainani’s gentle voice and lyrics float across shimmering vocal arrangements and soft touches of piano, accompanied by tasteful drum programming, acoustic guitars swaying like palms against the calming warmth of the bass line.

As the closing track on her award-winning album, Waipunalei, “He Lei Aloha No Mī Nei” stands out from the rest of the album with its modern R&B style. Instead of composing in a familiar “cha-lang-a-lang” style, Kainani and her collaborators deliberately placed the song, or mele, outside the box of what might typically considered “Hawaiian music”. For Kainani, mele is rooted in the lyrics, which come from a Hawaiian worldview. “To me, that’s the most important part. And when that part is set, there really is no limit to what kind of music you can put around it to support the mele.”With “He Lei Aloha No Mī Nei”, she achieves that with a shining example for generations past and present to carry the Hawaiian language into the future.