Hapa haole music

Hapa haole music (lit. 'half foreign' in

"Hapa haole" is a Hawaiian term referring to someone of part-Hawaiian, part-foreign ancestry. It emerged after Christian missionaries in Hawaii introduced the term "half" to Hawaiians, which became "hapa" in Hawaiian.^[1]

Hapa haole is described as Hawaiian music that uses primarily English lyrics, with both real and mock Hawaiian words sometimes included. Its lyrical content usually focuses on the people, culture, and nature of the

Around the beginning of the 20th century, stringed instruments, such as the ukulele and the steel guitar, overtook traditional wind instruments as the ones most commonly used by Hawaiian musicians. During this time, the phrase "hapa haole" first began to be used in reference to any Hawaiian song that had mostly English lyrics and influence from American genres.^[4] "My Waikiki Mermaid", possibly the first hapa haole song, was composed by Sonny Cunha in 1903.^[6]

Hapa haole music was introduced to the mainland United States at multiple points through the 1910s. The 1912 Broadway musical The Bird of Paradise contained multiple songs from the genre.^[2][5] Additionally, hapa haole was widely performed by bands at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in 1915 as a part of the exposition's Hawaiian Pavilion.^[4][7] "On the Beach at Waikiki", a hapa haole composition by Henry Kailimai which was performed at the exposition,^[7][8] went on to become a major hit in the mainland, one of the first of the genre to do so.^[9][10] Following these initial introductions of the genre in the mainland, hapa haole and Hawaiian music as a whole began to find a large amount of attention and commercial success across the country.^[4][10] In 1916, hapa haole was the best-selling genre in the United States.^[7] The popularity of one hapa haole artist, Johnny Noble, led to him recording 110 Hawaiian songs with Brunswick Records, a mainland label, in 1928.^[10]

Novelty songs written by non-Hawaiians, such as songwriters from Tin Pan Alley, formed a considerable amount of hapa haole songs produced following its initial explosion in popularity.^[5][10] Many of these songs were detached from actual Hawaiian culture, and used nonsensical, faux-Hawaiian lyrics.^[3] The songs also intended to appeal to American tourists' notions of Hawaii; specifically, the islands' perceived "exoticism and seduction".^[11][12] Later on, during the Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970s, the genre was the subject of criticism due to its perceived inauthenticity.^[2]

The hapa haole "craze" peaked and began to dissipate in the 1930s.