Spirit of Aloha | Articles | Here's Hawai'i | March/April 2004

Under the Hula Moon

A Powerful Presence

Ryan Kamakakehau Fernandez is a recent winner of the Richard Ho'opi'i Leo Ki'e Ki'e Falsetto Contest. PHOTO BY BRETT UPRICHARD

"May I share a song with you?"

It was a beautifully Hawaiian gesture from the young man seated before me-to introduce himself by offering a song-and I was touched by his generosity. Months earlier, I was one of hundreds at the Aloha Festivals Maui Falsetto Contest who applauded thunderously for this prodigy, Ryan Kamakakehau Fernandez. We were awed by his fluency in the Hawaiian language, his powerful presence on a big stage and his virtuosity in traditional Hawaiian falsetto singing. Now, in a busy diner in Kahului, Maui, Kamaka played his koa 'ukulele and sang to his mother and me, a song titled "Makuahine," a tribute he had written for her a year before, when he was 17. He was soft-spoken and humble, and a little bit shy. Robyn Nae'ole, his mother, filled in the details of his extraordinary life.

"It's one of those meant-to-be stories," she said. "I applied for the adoption on a Saturday in 1985, and he was born the next day in Little Rock, Ark. I didn't have a picture; I just knew how much he weighed, when he was born and that he was African-American. I had a wonderful attorney, who picked me up at the airport in Little Rock and let me stay at his home. He set me up with bibs, Pampers, everything I needed." Less than 24 hours later, she was flying home to Maui, with a 6-week-old adopted infant on a $1,200 ticket that a church group had helped purchase.

"When we arrived on Maui, the airport was filled with family and friends just waiting to welcome this little boy," she recalled. "My cousin, who was studying Hawaiian language at the University of Hawai'i when the adoption came through, named him Kamakakehau-'your heart's desire.'"

Divorced when Ryan was 2, Robyn raised him as the only child of a single mother, with plenty of love and guidance from her brothers and sisters. Kamaka had no Hawaiian blood, yet grew up steeped in Hawaiian culture. His graduation last year from King Kekaulike High School left him fluent in the Hawaiian language and accomplished
on the 'ukulele. He is completely self-taught in music, which he neither reads nor writes.

"I taught myself to sing falsetto in my senior year," he explained. "A couple of friends pushed me. They said, 'I bet you can do it.' I think that, because I was raised in the Hawaiian language, I found the music fascinating and took to it naturally."

With last year's falsetto contest came a recording contract with Hula Records and a bright musical future. From April 8 to 11, at the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua, he will chant and perform, with his group, Kuleana, at the state's most impressive Hawaiian cultural festival, Celebration of the Arts. Soon he'll start classes in Hawaiian language and music at Maui Community College.

With his penchant for Hawaiian culture and music, the classes may be a formality. "We live in Ha'ikü, and for many years I'd be reading in the bedroom or watching TV, and Kamaka would be outside, singing up a storm," said Robyn. "The closest neighbors were two lots away, so he had all this freedom to sing-to the dogs, to the cats, to the stars. While doing household chores, I'd turn the stereo on, put him in his crib and he would stand in the corner jumping and dancing. It was great for me as long as he had music."

Added Kamaka: "A friend told me, 'Even when you were a baby, when you cried, you carried a good note.'"

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