Kawika Kahiapo shares his love for Hawaiian music as he enjoys success as a solo performer and as a member of the award-winning groups Kaukahi and Kuāiwi. Courtesy photo

Multiple Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award winning musician Kawika Kahiapo will perform at the Masters of Hawaiian Music show in Napili on July 9, joined by Maui musician Shem Kahawai and hula dancer Wainani Kealoha.

Kahiapo has enjoyed critical and popular success as a solo performer and as a member of the award-winning groups Kaukahi and Kulāiwi.

An in-demand musician known for his unique slack key guitar style, he has performed with a host of leading artists in Hawaii from Dennis Kamakahi, Melveen Leed, Brother Noland and Kapena, to Na Leo Pilimehana, Del Beazley, Cyril and Martin Pahinui, Paula Fuga and Amy Hānaiali’i.

“I’ve collaborated or sat in on probably 135 recording projects,” Kahiapo said. Albums he has played on include Jack Johnson’s “Curious George” CD as well as George Kahumoku Jr.’s “Masters of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar, Vol. 2,” which won a Grammy Award for Best Hawaiian Music Album. In 2023, Jake Shimabukuro featured him singing Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” on his album, “Grateful.”

His admirers include Johnson, who was impressed with his guitar playing. They met at a wedding party where Kahiapo was performing.

“Jack said he was learning slack key from an old guy on the North Shore,” Kahiapo explained. “He said, ‘I love your style. Kawika, I’ve never heard that sort of hybrid approach.’ One of my favorite guitarists is Earl Klugh. Probably 10 years of listening to Earl Klugh, I sort of integrated that styling into my slack key. So some people will tell me when they hear me, I sound like a Hawaiian Earl Klugh.”

Johnson and Kahiapo began hanging out. “I’d hang out with him at his house on the North Shore and we play music, we just jam,” he said. “We became best of friends. So that’s how I eventually started playing with him and then hosting his fundraising Kōkua Hawai’i Festival. I’ve been on his foundation board of directors for 20 years.”

When he was playing with the group Kaukahi, Johnson offered his home studio to make an album and they ended up recording his song, “Constellations.”

“We were recording one day, and he said, ‘Kawika, you think maybe you guys might want to do a song with me on your album?’ Years earlier, I was teaching him slack key, and that day in the studio, he said, ‘Listen to this.’ And he played ‘Constellations,’ and he did the sweetest slack key. We recorded ‘Constellations’ with him and the slack key introduction to the song is actually Jack playing, not me.”

Kaukahi won the Hōkū for Group of the Year for their album, “Life in These Islands,” and Kahiapo also won Song of the Year for the album’s title song.

Growing up in Kaneohe on Oahu, Kahiapo’s interest in music began at an early age, inspired by his father. Some of his fondest memories are jam sessions when Gabby Pahinui would show up and play.

“My uncles would come to our house for parties and I was about 13, when one of them would start bringing Gabby,” Kahiapo recalled. “I was playing a few years already at that point, and he saw I was taking it seriously. I learned a couple of tunings and some philosophy. We had a lot of garage jam sessions. He began to speak to me some thoughts and his approach to slack key. He loved jazz and a lot of his approach to slack key was always innovative. Gabby was always cutting edge, doing like Latin stuff, Hawaiian stuff, introducing different influences. He told me, ‘Ultimately, the way you sound, the way you play will reflect the influences. Whatever you love to listen to, your sound will be a reflection of all the influences.'”

At 17, Kahiapo joined Chucky Boy Chock and Oahu Brand, and then later played with Palani Vaughan and The King’s Own.

“Palani was amazing,” he said. “I broke into the Waikiki music scene playing at venues and concerts where all the major Hawaiian artists were and they were sort of taking me under their wing and giving me some advice. One of the big influences on my life was Peter Moon. So all the music like Sunday Manao and Gabby, and getting to meet guys like Jerry Santos and Robert Beaumont of Olomana.”

Kahiapo’s first solo album, “Alana,” released in 1996, combined contemporary and traditional Hawaiian songs, along with the kī hōʻalu instrumental “East Side Slack Key.”

A decade later, at the 2015 Hōkū Awards, he won Island Music Album for “Ku’u ‘Aina Aloha,” and Slack Key Album for “Ho’omaluhia.” He was the only recording artist that year to win awards with different projects.

A year later, he released “Uke and Call Me Cousin,” featuring his gift as a ukulele player. It included covers of Graham Nash’s “Teach Your Children” and Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence.”

Forming the group Kulāiwi with Na Leo’s Lehua Kalima and Shawn Kekoa Pimental, plus hula dancer Pono Fernandez, in 2022, they won Album of the Year, Group and Hawaiian Album of the Year for their debut recording “Native Lands.”

Years earlier he had toured with Kalima in Na Leo and knew Pimental from also working with the female trio. “Shawn and I had been friends over the years,” he said. “Shawn produced Lehua’s love songs album, and they started playing gigs together. And then, at some point, they were throwing out different ideas about Hawaiian music and a Hawaiian album. They laid some preliminary tracks and called me in. I added my voice and my slack key, and I introduced a couple of songs I wrote and that became the Kulāiwi album, which won five Hōkū awards the following year.”

His latest album, the compilation “Ku’u Mana’o,” just won the Hōkū for Anthology of the Year. And he is currently working on a recording project with slack key guitarist Bobby Moderow.

Having a son with autism, he gathered together some friends to compile the album, “Aloha Autism,” with proceeds donated to the Hawaii Autism Foundation. Tracks included John Cruz’s “Shine On,” Henry Kapono’s “Stand In the Light,” and Blayne Asing’s “Molokai On My Mind.”

“Every artist on that album, I rang them, and (told them) ‘I’m doing an autism album, would you like to contribute? Everyone was, ‘What do you need?’ Every song was something that they pre-recorded, and it went with the theme of selfless love and aloha.

“And the real beautiful thing was, I was going to license every song, and every artist said, ‘I don’t want the royalty, put it towards the fundraising.’ Everyone was just so willing. We all understand that we have a platform with our music, and we all need to embrace a platform of giving, of service and aloha.”

Kahiapo will perform at the Masters of Hawaiian Music show at the Napili Kai Beach Resort’s Aloha Pavilion on July 9. Doors open at 5:45 p.m., show begins at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are available in advance at SlackKeyShow.com or (808) 669-3858.