Toyota Hawaiʻ i presents Kalapana: Celebrating the Music and Legacy
To promote Aloha Got Soul’s Kalapana box set, I initiated a weekend event in Chinatown over two days.

Pop- Up at Kaiao Space Experiential concept, and production.

It seemed reasonable to divide the space in two. One side was an exhibit featuring priceless memorabilia. Original tour laminates, intimate family photos, Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards, drivers licenses, and everything in between were on display. Nearly 5 decades worth of memorabilia were collected through Aloha Got Soul’s existing relationships with Kalapana friends and family, as well as personal collections of Aloha Got Soul staff.

The second side was a retail display and stage that was loosely inspired by the 70’s. A stage was built for the evening’s performance and doubled as a perfect photo op in the daytime.

I enlisted my friend Josh to remix a handful of Kalapana songs and outfit them for a shopping experience. Days before the event, 70’s-80’s DJ Kamasami Kong was introduced to AGS and offered to record something for our event. I sent a rough script to interrupt the mix every time it loops. The goal was to illicit memories of folks who grew up in this era, and the recordings he sent back did so beautifully.