KeAloha is an interdisciplinary artist who intertwines her gifts of song, dance, words, and rhythm.
She was born and raised in Prince George, where her Lheidli T’enneh ancestry hails, and moved to the ancestral homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations in 2015.
KeAloha is releasing her debut single this spring – entitled: Mama’s Hands, in celebration and love for the one who raised her. Mama’s Hands is part of a larger body of work which KeAloha will release over the coming seasons, and which centre her experiences as a femme of colour,
discovering her ancestral stories, and re-envisioning life with chronic illness disability.
“When I play and write I am endless,” she says. “My songs are paths that lead me deeper into the worlds of my mixed identity, and into the identities I am only just becoming. I make melodies from pages of my journal and clippings of love letters and I dream of all the places my love has yet to go.”
KeAloha is a mixed-race femme, whose blood carries legacies of Polynesian navigators and
dancers, Lheidli trappers and medicine people, Irish farmer-settlers, and Chinese immigrants.
Her music is a vessel for her to build relationships and understanding with the many identities
she holds.
KeAloha’s music has helped her to rebuild herself through deep compassion.
“I have been dreaming of starting my own project – of being behind the drum kit but also being behind the mic – for a long time, and becoming KeAloha in all of my artistic power came to me when I was ready, and when I needed a new door to open,” she says. “Creating my own music became a way for me to find liberation from the barriers of my chronic illness disability, and to honour all the intersections I hold.”
KeAloha is committed to shaping her career and community through reciprocity for the people
and music-cultures who inspire her, including the chants, mele, and rhythms from her own
Hawaiian and Tahitian roots; Black genres of RnB, hip hop, soul, and jazz; salsa Cubana;
cumbia Colombiana; and Afro-Indo Caribbean soca.
KeAloha is a usual suspect in Vancouver’s RnB, Latin, jazz, fusion, hip hop, neo-soul, folk,
and pop scenes; including performances with original projects: Sweetz, Breaking Boundaries,
Cumbia Galera, and Primary Trio at The Orpheum, The Wisehall, Museum of Anthropology,
Guilt & Co, Deer Lake Gallery, Khatsalano St. Fest, The Railway, Indigifest (Victoria),
Glitterball Fest, Experimental Waves, and beyond.