Hometown: Honolulu, Hawaii
Genre: Hawaiian Slack-Key Guitar
Why We're Excited: Hawaiian musician and activist Makana has played huge stages, toured the world and popped up as an outspoken advocate for social justice. He's also spent his life mastering the slack-key guitar, as heard in the soft shredding of "Napo'o Ka La" — translation: "The Setting Of The Sun" — a Makana original that shimmers like the ocean. It's as deftly played and intricate as it is evocative, timeless and beautiful. (Watch him perform the tune in a Tiny Desk Contest submission from 2017.)
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