Oʻahu-based music artist Myron Armstrong, who goes by the stage name 8RO8, will drop his debut full-length album, “Hammajang,” this month on Thursday, June 25, on Spotify.
The album is the result of seven years of singles and extended plays in genres like reggae, hip hop and R&B. The singer and songwriter, who grew up in Mākaha, has more than 375,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. In 2024, he was featured in Spotify’s global Asian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month Campaign, which included appearances on billboards in Los Angeles and New York City.
His catalog of recorded music includes features from prominent artists, such as Bay Area rapper P-Lo, the Island reggae artist J Boog, and 94Tunez of Rebel Souljahz, among others.
So far, five of the 13 singles on the new album have been released, including “Counting on You” with Franskiiz and lelz, “Shooting Star,” “Midnight Luvah” with Topshakaz, “Sarah” with Karri and “Monstah” with Nueve Lio.
The album launch includes a concert tour in California with stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Las Vegas.
Ahead of the album’s release, Armstrong spoke with Aloha State Daily about the song “Midnight Luvah” featuring Topshakaz, which released in March. That song, which now has more than 735,000 streams on Spotify, features Armstrong as he sings and dances alongside … the Ala Wai Canal.
“'That’s been an idea I've had for the longest time, ever since I watched ʻLa La Land’” he said. “LA does not look like ʻLa La Land.’ I just want to put it out there. Aside from the opening scene, when they're in traffic that's the only thing that kind of feels like LA. Everything else is so beautiful. They've done such a beautiful job with lighting it perfectly, making sure they're choosing the right colors to elicit certain vibes.”
8RO8 took that as inspiration. He set up alongside the Ala Wai Canal.
“I wanted to put a play on turning something that everybody sees all the time into something a lot more romantic and that has just a different vibe, because there's such a strong color being pushed onto it,” he said.
Most of the video was shot late in the evening, often rolling until close to midnight or later, over several days. They brought in a giant light and camera, and 8RO8 was wearing sunglasses at night. To those passing by, it was an unusual scene, he added.
“It just looks super extra, super funny, but you have to remove yourself from that so you can stay in scene,” he said.
The name of the new album was inspired by home.
“Growing up in Hawaiʻi, I think we all kind of get attached to certain phrases,” he said. “Culture is so important to developing who you are as a person. And in my case, Pidgin has been something I've always been fascinated with — especially noticing how different parts of the island interact with it. And growing up, the word hammajang was always thrown around where we're from, which is on the West Side of Oʻahu.”
For 8RO8, that means celebrating the beauty of imperfection.
"I'm trying to turn it into this way of life," he said. "Like the most recent buzzword is wabi-sabi, when there's a charm to it not being perfect. I'm trying to find the charm of things being hammajang, or put together — or just somehow it works."
It also fits how the album was created.
“It's just making things work when we don't have the resources,” said Ian Tsang, who is part of 8RO8’s management team. “A lot of the music videos that he does, he's actually directing himself. He's putting all the composition behind this video. The ‘Shooting Star’ music video, we didn't have a gimbal, so he put his camera on a skateboard, and he just used that to get a stable shot.”
The singer and songwriter’s motto for this year?
“There's no going back,” he said. “It's all in.”
8RO8 is one of the featured performers for the upcoming Holo Holo Music Festival in Sacramento, California, in September. Other featured performers that weekend include Shaggy, The Green, Natural Vibrations, Wavvy, High Watah, Ekolu, Eli-Mac and more. Get tickets.
Follow 8RO8 on Spotify, YouTube, Instagram or TikTok.
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Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.
