Aloha ʻĀina Meds- with Kuʻulei Perreira-Keawekane

Creative Natives HI
Jun 29, 2021
4 min read

#theCNP ep. 004

Kuʻulei Perreira-Keawekane

Musician / Educator / Cultural Advocate / Activist

#theCNP

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_rR9YKIXNA

Honolulu, HI (CNHI) - Panaʻewa native Kuʻulei Perreira-Keawekane aka @mauli.ola is a musician, cultural advocate, and Hawaiian activist with significant influence in person and on social media with 21k people who follow her journey. In February of this year, she released a single entitled "Aloha ʻĀina Meds" (prod. by Ikaʻakamai) that has gained popularity amongst the lāhui and even some airplay on Hawaiʻi radio stations.

"Hawaiʻi beauty is not the same as assimilated beauty. Our beauty comes from the ability to feed ourselves." -Kuʻulei

Q: How did you get the name “Kuʻulei”?

A: "My mom’s grandma’s middle name is Kuʻulei, so that’s my middle name. I also have an Aunty Kuʻulei who is this really amazing storyteller. She is so beautiful and so Hawaiʻi. As I was growing up, I really wanted to bring that mana and aloha for ʻāina out of myself. I decided to go with Kuʻulei because of my Aunty Kuʻulei. I’ve always wanted to be an Aunty Kuʻulei and now I am. My great-grandma on my dad’s side gave my tūtū up for adoption and I learned that her middle name is also Kuʻulei.”

Q: How did you become so outspoken?

A: "It’s in my lineage to be well-spoken and to be oratory. It has been our kuleana and function for generations and generations to speak. It’s an art to be able to take your thoughts and feelings about something and pull it up through your throat and make it out of your lips. My mom’s mom always made sure that I was reading when I was really young, so that has a lot to do with it also."

Q: “What does mauli ola mean?”

A: "Mauli ola is such a special word. In this day, age, and time, mauli ola is the term that is used to refer to wellness, but the wellness of a person’s aboriginal root or the wellness of a person’s cultural identity. For people to say it, it’s like one small, tiny step into their reclamation of their own mauli ola."

Q: “How do you deal with the different pressures as an influencer, musician, and cultural practitioner?”

A: “Sometimes, I just don’t deal with it. Remembering who I am and why I have a platform to begin with helps me a lot because most of the pressures that I experience from my influencer account come from the stress that I put on myself. There’s always going to be something that I didn’t do right, but I have to remember that I am also human. I don’t owe anybody anything, except myself and the kupuna that I come from and the ʻāina that I live on. It’s the relationship with my ʻāina that really keeps me. “

Q: “What is the moʻolelo behind your tattoo?”

A: “There is a truth that is simple. My truth that is simple for me is that kānaka, ʻāina, & Akua connections are what will save us; the Lokahi triangle. There was a clear voice in the process of me understanding this tattoo because I really didn’t want this tattoo. When I got the call to get these markings, I cried and wondered about where I would work, but the clarity was that it’s not about your face. We are not here to show face, it’s about what you do. The underlying truth was that I was not put on this earth to fit into any type of space that is submissive to hewa. The marking on my face sheds a light on what it is to be prepared and to come knowing what weʻre here to do. When it comes to my work, it became a lot deeper and a lot more serious than it was before I got this tattoo because I was choosing that life. After I got this tattoo, my kūpuna told me that I am where I need to be and I need to continue to walk this path and that’s how it’s been since I got this tattoo.”

Q: “What inspired you to collaborate on a song like Aloha ʻAina Meds?”

A: “There is this surge of kūpuna that are resurfacing in today’s time. There’s like this surge of old people who are making themselves more relevant and present in this time through the people that come from them, so this song made its way to me in a very real way. The refrain means to stand different and stand different and stand different until the very last person who loves their ʻāina. The song is a medicine. The song is “Aloha ʻĀina Meds” because it’s a medley, but also because it’s a medicine for Hawaiian people to remember what it is to be Hawaiian.”

Q: “What does the term creative native mean to you?”

A: “The term creative native makes me think of my relationship to Waiau and Kukaha'ula which are pieces of Mauna Kea because my relationship to the mauna is not only political and not only in spaces of activism. My relationship to that mauna is a relationship of abundance, peace, joy, and rest. So, when I think of creative native, it makes me think of the safety that comes before the protection, the nourishment and the goodness that comes before the war.”

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