Nā Palapalai

Nā Palapalai is a Hawaiian music band founded in Hilo, Hawaiʻi, in 1995 by Kuana Torres Kahele (then 17, per Wikipedia), fellow Hilo native and falsetto singer Kapulanakehau "Kehau" Tamure, and Keao Costa. The trio built its sound on traditional and contemporary Hawaiian music, performing and recording primarily in the Hawaiian language with ukulele, guitar, ipu (gourd drum), and upright bass. Their music has long been closely associated with hula, and their songs are widely used by hālau hula (hula schools) for performance and competition.

The group's 2002 album Makani ʻOluʻolu brought wide critical and popular success. Kuana Torres Kahele's original composition "Ke Anu O Waimea" from that album remains one of the most streamed Nā Palapalai songs and is widely cited as one of the most popular hula songs in Japan. Over roughly two decades the band released eight albums (1999–2018) on Mountain Apple Records, with Nānea (2009) and Haʻa (2012) both charting in the top five of Billboard's Top World Albums chart, and the group has been recognized repeatedly at Hawaiʻi's Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards, considered the state's equivalent of the Grammy Awards.

After a lengthy hiatus, Nā Palapalai reunited with all three original members — Kahele, Tamure, and Costa — for a homecoming performance, captured on the live album Hoʻopili Hou (2018), recorded at the historic Hawaii Theatre during Kahele's 2017 Winter Wonderland concert. Wikipedia lists Ioane (also spelled Ione) Burns, a bassist and vocalist who performed and recorded with the group at points in its history, as a past member; he died in September 2020. Sources describe some additional variation in the band's lineup and activity over its history that is not fully documented in verifiable secondary sources, so this record reflects only what is confirmed via Wikipedia and corroborating news coverage.