Berkeley-based Kumu Hula Māhealani Uchiyama released her new song “A Lei for Reverend King,” on May 1, which is Lei Day in Hawaiʻi.
The song honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who wore a lei, sent by the people of Hawaiʻi as a show of solidarity and support in the struggle for civil rights, as he marched from Selma to Montgomery. It is part of the album, “Pōpoloheno: Songs of Resilience and Joy,” which releases June 13, and tells a compilation of stories of people of African descent in Hawaiian history.
Uchiyama was originally a ballet dancer.
“Then, I got to be six feet tall by the time I was 11 years old,” she told Aloha State Daily. “The height I am now is I achieved it when I was 11 years old, and I looked around and didn't see any ballet dancers, any ballerinas, in the late ’60s who looked remotely like me: tall, dark. I realized then that if I wanted to keep dancing — and I needed to keep dancing; dancing was what grounded me, in a lot of ways — that I would need to find another way to engage. And my mom, very astutely and determinedly, found a place where I could start learning hula in Washington D.C. That really started my desire to want to come here, which I eventually did, to go to University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa campus.”
The new song is part of the album, “Pōpoloheno: Songs of Resilience and Joy” which features Kawika Alfiche; Ikaika Blackburn; Kamakakēhau Fernandez; Jerome Koko and Hanale Kaʻanapu, courtesy of The Mākaha Sons; Patrick Landeza; Azure McCall; Kailua Moon; Kalani Peʻa; Kaulike Pescaia, Wailau Ryder; and Nathanial Māhealani Stillman.
The project was created by Uchiyama and a team of advisors including Adam Keawe Manalo-Camp, a historian and sociologist; Akiemi Glenn, a historical consultant; Puakea Nogelmeier, a Hawaiian language resource; and Kalei Nuʻuhiwa, who provided guidance on Hawaiian epistemology and protocol.
Uchiyama danced to “Kamakakēhau” a song from the new album, which was composed by Peʻa and performed at his seventh annual “May Day is Lei Day in Hawaiʻi” concert at Hawaiʻi Theatre on Saturday, May 3. The song is a tribute to Kamakakēhau Fernandez, an African American from Little Rock, Arkansas, who was adopted into a Hawaiian family as a child and became a Nā Hōkū Hanohano award-winning singer.
Uchiyama’s father was from Tennessee and her mother was from North Carolina. They settled together in Washington D.C. where they opened a night club and African American singers and bands would often make this a stop, “so music was always a big part of my family,” she said.
“There was always music playing. The house was full of books,” she said. “My mind was engaged all the time.”
As part of the launch of the album, Uchiyama will host two concerts: one at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Friday, Aug. 1, in San Francisco, California, and another at Leeward Community College Theatre in Pearl City on Oʻahu, on Saturday, Aug. 16.
Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.
