testimony

I was born raised in Kona, Hawaii.

My family upbringing was ruled by a man that was abusive physically, mentally, emotionally...my Dad.

Music and art kept me alive through the abuse, and after going out on my own years later to pursue music, performing in bands in California my most successful band Damahakuz, a metal hardcore band in Sacramento year 2000ish, looking at a record, big concerts, tour ,etc, but I felt I was needed back home to Hawaii for family reasons. This was the first of 2 big decisions to put my career on hold for family.

When coming back home I picked up acoustic music, slack key guitar, ukulele and started performing solo with an acoustic vibe.

I started combining the ukulele to my guitar with velcro because I knew I could perform it at the same time and I felt like I was always different , my ears have an extended ear lobes and deaf in left ear with no hole to hear through. I was bullied, teased, beat up for these physical attributes, and my Dad just beat me up some more  when I would ask him to help me so I was literally on my own learning to be creative just to stay alive, so this was my life, being different and on the outside the norm.

 My Dad got sick around 2007 than I step in to heal him, feeding him, washing, cleaning him for a year until he got better physically,  than he started to get Dementia.

After that year I started to care for him periodically while creating my Na Hoku nominated CD Ekahi until Dementia and health deteriorated to where I just stopped everything to care for him.

At that point Dementia made him all the things he was not while I was growing up, Loving,caring, supportive and now he loved music and was nice to me.

I started playing music with him than slowly recording video , first for me as I was totally alone and wanted to connect musically on Facebook, social media as my first video Dad was behind me tapping his hand while I play a song and it went viral.

I started to do more and more videos with Dad, finally giving him a percussion drum and found he had natural timing so I gave him more instruments, harmonica, ukulele,  only to find out that after all these years of hating me playing music it was he that I got my musical talent from.

Now after 150 videos ,hundreds of pictures of the two of us playing music together, thousands following on Facebook from all over the world helping people through abuses, showing forgiveness, showing care and Aloha.  

Love finds its way through the most impossible situations to connect all of us if we are open and let it happen. 

p.s...  I have been writing my story ever since this journey started almost ten years ago and soon to be coming out.