Kuana Torres and the Lava song

Remember the Lava song?  It is  in the short film before the Pixar film "Inside Out"

Our ukulele group has added it to our song book and we sing it each week.  But yesterday I got to see and meet Kuana at our Daughters of Hawaii meeting.  He came to speak to us and sang some of his songs and talk story about how he learned music from his elders and how he got the job of singing the Lava song!  He is the voice of the fat volcano in the song, and also the narrator.  He said everyone is so surprised at how popular the song has been.  He said he couldn't sing us the song because it takes two people.  He also has a lei making DVD and was on a tour of the islands promoting it and demonstrating lei making.  His picture was on the front of our paper today.  Here are some photos of him.

I suggested that he might be in the Academy Awards singing the lava song!  It didn't seem like he had thought of that.  The song was recorded 2 1/2 years ago.

The lei he has on:  The orange one is an ilima lei, or turmeric flower.  It is very hard to make because it is so time consuming and hard to find that many flowers.  The shell leis are Ni'ihau shells from the island of that name.  These shells are very rare and only allowed to be gathered by the inhabitants of the island who are all native Hawaiians.  No one else is allowed to live there.  I would say each strand would be worth more than $1,000.  There are even smaller shells, like the size of a peppercorn, that are even more rare.  I have a pair of small earrings made of them.  I'm not sure what the leaves are for the green lei, but I bet he made that one at the demonstration.