Hawaiian artist – Hoku Award winner and Grammy nominee, Josh Tatofi – picked up the Best International Pacific Artist award at New Zealand’s Pacific Music Awards in 2023, adding to his growing international profile while building on a legacy of family, culture and his own journey as a musician.
The win in New Zealand last year was for his songs ‘Prisoner of Love‘, ‘Sweet Loven‘, ‘Landslide’, ‘Still the One‘, ‘Pua Ahih’I‘, ‘Good Morning Beautiful’ and ‘Tomorrow’.
“It’s not just a great thing for myself but for our culture, our people. The award itself is not what its all about, it’s the meaning behind the award, representing our people of the South Pacific . I’m just glad to be among other talented musicians and artists. Just super blessed that I received the award,” Tatofi told Islands Business.
Tatofi, who sold out at Honolulu’s 6,800-seat Blaisdell Arena in Hawaii last February, was born and raised in Honolulu. His father, established local musician Tivaini Tatofi, is an original member of the acclaimed reggae band, Kapena.
By the age of 13, Josh had begun performing throughout the Hawaiian Islands, establishing himself as a respected vocalist while gaining the recognition of his audiences and his peers.
By the age of 19, Josh recorded an album with the popular Maui band, ‘Ekolu.
“I started my music journey as a kid,” says Tatofi. “My dad is a local celebrity musician here in Hawaii. He is one of the lead singers and bass player for the group, Kapena. And at a young age, it really started off with me really wanting to be like dad. That spiralled into me being like him.”
“I was born and raised here in Hawaii,” says Tatofi. “In 2014, I sat down and looked at my overall career and what I was doing and I wanted to have a lot more meaning to it than just going out and singing. Hawaiian music has definitely brought that attention, that inspiration and that motivation to not just do better as a singer but as a cultural practitioner. It gave me a lot more meaning in what I was doing. I feel the same way recording the Tongan song, or Samoan song, or Maori song or Tahitian song. The South Pacific islanders are such beautiful people.
“My foundation of whatever genre of music I sing is R&B, whether I sing an island reggae song or Hawaiian song or a Tongan song,” says Tatofi. “Even though I may sing in a different language or different feel, I truly believe that the foundation for all my music is R&B.”
Prisoner of Love
“Prisoner of Love is one of my favourite songs,” says Tatofi. “I actually wrote that song after binge watching a series called The Last Kingdom on Netflix for three or four seasons. I loved the story that was behind it. There was a main character by the name of Uhtred and he loved the princess who was going to be queen. But no one could accept him as the other half of the queen because he came from the “peasants”, the Vikings. I just loved the story because no matter how good he did, the princess, queen, saw all the good definitely a love connection there but the world that he lived in didn’t allow it because of his role in there. But the way I see it was that he was so in love with her that he was keen to either be a knight in shining armour or a prisoner of love and that’s how the song came about.”
Sweet Loven
“That’s a reggae, upbeat song that was inspired by my uncle Saki from the islands of Fiji,” says Tatofi.
“He played a lot of up-tempo music and it’s definitely one of those creations where right after that you can feel that uplifting beat that you just automatically want to get off your seat and want to go after it. I felt that song was pulling for me to do. I felt after I made the melody and everything, Sweet Loven is the message I got.”
Pua Ahi’hi
“Pua Ahi’hi is actually an old song here in Hawaii, talking about the flower and that was a cover,” says Tatofi. “So, the version I based mine on was by Kumu Hula O’Brian Eselu. He made that song ‘Pua Ahi’hi’ and he is the artist that made me fall in love with that song. I wanted to pay homage to him and add that song to our repertoire and our list. It’s just such a beautiful number that I wanted to sing.”
With his first Hawaiian language single, ‘Pua Kiele‘, Tatofi expressed his aloha for the culture, language, and traditions of Hawaii.
“The inspiration behind Pua Kiele was my grandmother, Litea,” says Tatofi.
“Her favourite flower is the gardenia flower and in Tongan it’s Katinia and in Hawaiian it’s Kiele which was the Pua Kiele. It was the very first Hawaiian song that I recorded. I thought that if we are going to branch out into this genre of Hawaiian music, I wanted to come out with a meaning that was sentimental to me, which is my grandmother, so it inspired me to write about the kiele and her love and something I wear around my neck as a lei (garland) of adornment. So that’s my kauna (metaphor/meaning). I know that a lot of other people have a different meaning of the song which I encourage. So, for someone else Pua Kiele might be a memory of their father or their dog or their best friend or their other half. I encourage people to listen to the songs and indulge in the feeling of it.”
In 2017, Tatofi won two Na Hoku Hanohano Hawaiʻi Academy of Recording Arts awards for the categories of Male Vocalist of the Year and Island Music Album of the Year for Pua Kiele. He received a Grammy nomination in 2018 for the same album in the category of Regional Roots.
The album ended up winning five Na Hoku Hanohano Awards in 2020. In addition to the Hoku Awards, Tatofi won Best International Pacific Artist in 2020 at the Pacific Music Awards in New Zealand.
Tatofi has made three albums since 2011. His latest is ‘ua Kui a Lawa’, which has songs such as ‘Never Love this Way Again’ from Dionne Warwick, ‘For the Lahui’, ‘Kalulana Kepaniwai’ and ‘Sweet Memories’, which is one of his favourite tracks.
“I’m a fulltime musician,” says Tatofi. “And I’ve been a fulltime musician since I was 18 or 19 years old. I’m 32 now and the different ways of “making it” or paying your bills has changed throughout the years. There might be years where I’ve played gigs weekly or daily. Sometimes through social media, sometimes through concerts or tours. The good thing about social media is that there are a lot of different avenues to make an income through playing music. Before social media, you weren’t heard of ’til you travelled there or went there. But now I could sing a song and post it on social media and someone from New Zealand will watch, someone from Australia will watch it and someone from Brazil will watch it. I think things have changed for the better in a lot of different ways.
Tatofi says that the biggest challenge in music is to stay encouraged and motivated no matter what spectrum or scale of success you are from.
“For someone starting from scratch, it’s hard to stay encouraged when money isn’t coming in, whether or not you’re getting the likes and views on social media,” says Tatofi. “But that’s how the beginning works.
Another struggle might be, say you’re successful, maintaining that name for yourself could be a struggle. I think there are consistent challenges throughout music, but I feel like it’s almost like golf where there might be a whole bad day of playing golf, but it might take one or two shots to go back again.”
Now that Tatofi is gaining acclaim, things are looking busier for him.
“I’m about to leave for New Zealand and Australia for the One Love and Jammin Festival,” says Tatofi.
“Here in Hawaii, we have the Merrie Monarch coming up which is like the super bowl hula and then we’re off to Japan for a tour and in the middle of these things I’ll be releasing music and content in between these times. There are a lot of things that I will be releasing throughout this year.”
