As often noted, the Hawaiian music scene came of age, not incidentally, during a period of cultural and political renaissance for Native Hawaiians, and few have embodied the relationship between the two spheres better than Jon Kamakawiwo'ole Osorio.
Popular performers and composers since the 1970s, Osorio and musical partner Randy Borden took over local airwaves in 1981 with their hit "Hawaiian Eyes," which earned a Hoku Award for song of the year.
In the quarter-century since, Osorio has made even deeper contributions as an author and academic. Born in Hilo and raised primarily in Honolulu, Osorio has earned international respect for his probing analysis of 19th- and 20th-century law and politics in Hawai'i, indigenous rights, Native Hawaiian values, music and identity.
As director of the University of Hawai'i-Manoa's Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, Osorio has helped a new generation of Hawaiian scholars carve a space in the Western academy that allows Hawaiian traditions and beliefs to inform serious intellectual inquiry.
Among Osorio's well-regarded publications is "Dismembering Lahui: A History of the Hawaiian Nation to 1887," an ambitious accounting of the political history of the Kingdom of Hawai'i, from 1840 to the Bayonet Constitution of 1887, that lends native insight into the effects of political Westernization on Hawaiian identity.
