STAR-BULLETIN / 2002 Lei Melket, left, and Mailani Makainai of Keahiwai were winners at the Hoku Awards and Hawaii Music Awards last year.

Kai’s sixth Hawaii
Music Awards program
unfolds Sunday at Kapono’s

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By John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.com

6th Annual Hawaii Music Awards Where: Kapono's, Aloha Tower Marketplace When: 6 p.m. Sunday Admission: $10 (free to 2003 award nominees) Call: 951-6699

If Johnny Kai wasn't devoting his energies to the Hawaii Music Awards, he'd make a fine motivational speaker. Talk to him about his plans for the awards program he created, and his enthusiasm is contagious. Much like legendary Hollywood B-movie film director Ed Wood, Kai sees setbacks as learning opportunities and operates with unflagging faith in the future.

It's crunch time for Kai as he prepares for the Sixth Annual Hawaii Music Awards show, which takes place at Kapono's in the Aloha Tower Marketplace on Sunday. "This year, we had something that never happened before," Kai said earlier this week. For the first time, he's gotten complaints from recording artists whose albums weren't listed on the ballot.

"We had about 10 or so really angry artists asking why they were left off the list," he said.

Artists get left off because, until now, it's been necessary to actively seek an opportunity to win a Hawaii Music Award. The Hawai'i Academy of Arts, on the other hand, automatically includes all eligible releases on its mammoth preliminary ballot, and its selection committee then looks for some of the more obscure artists' albums. HARA requires no entry fee or handling charges, nor is it necessary to be a member of HARA to win a Hoku Award.

Kai says he may do it that way next year. Up till now, he says, he's mailed information out to the distributors and record labels he knows of, but only those who return the forms are included. In the first few years this has meant that perennial HARA winners such as Na Leo and Amy Hanaiali'i Gilliom & Willie K -- who don't need to pursue recognition -- don't show up on the ballot, while the work of lesser-known producers and labels that could never make the Hoku's final ballot became big-time winners with Kai's Hawaii Music Awards.

That has been changing in recent years, and more of Hawaii's major-label artists have been turning up on Kai's ballot and even attending the always unpredictable awards show. One example of the change is that Kai's Group of the Year, Keahiwai, was also a winner at the Hoku Awards.

"(The industry) knows about the Hokus, and they enter that every year, but I guess they start to catch wind (of the Hawaii Music Awards) from somebody talking, maybe, and this year we had two or three labels from the neighbor islands that said they'd never heard of it ... but it's starting to catch on. People are starting to trust us."

WHILE THE winners in many categories -- chosen by popular vote -- will be announced on Sunday, other winners have been "already decided by committee and industry consultants." Joining Keahiwai are Norm (Male Vocalist of the Year), Riatea Helm (Female Vocalist of the Year), Chris Jay and Laiku Soares (Producer of the Year for "Take Me Home," by Aloha), and Troy Gonzales (Engineer of the Year for "Simply Sale," by Konishiki).

The Governor's Fine Arts Award recipient is Neva Rego; the Mayor's Performing Arts Award goes to Aaron Mahi; and the Loyal Garner Awards will go to the Brew Moon, Kapono's, KHUI 99.5 "The Breeze" and Bill Meyer.

Two Farrington High School music teachers and Principal Catherine Payne will also be honored as Music Educators of the Year, and 14 students representing five public high schools are winners in the Music Students of the Year category -- one of them being former "American Idol" contestant Jordan Segundo.

The Hawaii Music Awards has many more categories than HARA, and that has turned earlier HMA shows into slow marathons. Kai promises that Sunday's show will move faster.

And, as for the question of eligibility, Kai says it's simple.

"They have to have residence here or they recorded it here -- for instance, Mariah Carey recorded a CD here a while ago, (she) could enter it."

Nonresidents must record either "Hawaiian island music or Hawaiian music" to be eligible, and will compete against other nonresidents in an "International Hawaiian" category.

"They can't compete against the Hawaiian people. They don't stand a chance; people won't vote for them," Kai said.

Speaking of voting, after years of allowing unlimited stuff-the-ballot-box campaigning by local artists, Kai switched to online voting this year. He says the site got "260,000 hits" and that some 30,000 people from around the world actually voted on a one-ballot-per-e-mail-address basis.

"If you try to use the same address twice, it won't validate, but we know some musicians have 10, 20 addresses, so they voted 10, 20 times for themselves. They still find a way around (the rules), but at least they can't sit there and ... vote (for themselves) 10,000 times."

KAI SAYS that the international aspect of the awards has generated exposure for many local artists who have received e-mails from other parts of the world, and that people like Internet radio personality Aloha Joe, of the Aloha Radio Network, who recently produced and released an anthology album, have also been getting the word out.

As always, Kai has other projects in mind. One is a Web site called SOME, an acronym for Support Our Musicians and Entertainers, with classified ads that will help them recruit talent or advertise themselves for free.

"We had that argument within our committee and board about whether we should charge, and I said, 'We don't need to make money off the musicians. We're here to put food on their table, not take it off.' That's why I'm so glad I'm in charge!"

Kai also plans to turn video footage of this year's awards show into a TV special that he'd like to show across the mainland in 2005 and wants to introduce a music magazine later this year.

"Little by little, it's building. This year we had 132 entries, and every year (the number has) climbed. ... We know next year, garans, we'll break 150."

Kai cheerfully acknowledges that there have been problems over the years, but whatever may happen on Sunday, next year will be even better.

"It's the same goals, but I think we're getting smarter at it. I think we're learning from our mistakes, and we just get better each year."

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