'Kuini' at Full Reign: The Record That Made Kalani Peʻa Four-for-Four

Some albums you review; some you just get out of the way of. Kalani Peʻa's Kuini is the second kind. Released July 26, 2024, the Hilo-born singer's fifth studio album went on to win Best Regional Roots Music Album at the 2025 Grammys — his fourth win in that category, from four nominations, an unbeaten streak that no other Hawaiian artist of his generation can claim. Two years on, with Peʻa's ten-year anniversary tour bringing him home to the Palace Theater later this month, it's worth saying plainly what makes the record land.

Kuini means "queen," and the album is built as a tribute to the women, matriarchs, and goddesses who shaped Peʻa's Hawaiian identity — a theme he carries across eleven tracks he wrote or co-wrote. It's not a slack-key record or a traditionalist's museum piece. Peʻa's whole project has always been to smuggle Motown, soul, and full-throated R&B into contemporary Hawaiian music without letting the ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi — the Hawaiian language — become decoration. He grew up in Panaʻewa, just outside Hilo, singing to overcome a childhood speech impediment, with a mother who used music as therapy and a father who fed him jazz and big band. You can hear all of it.

The guest list tells you where he sits in the ecosystem: ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro turns up, as do Tiana Nonosina Liufau and Wailau Ryder. These aren't features for streaming-algorithm reasons; they're peers. And the Hawaiian-music establishment answered in kind — beyond the Grammy, Kuini took three Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards in June 2025, including Hawaiian Music Album of the Year. When both the Recording Academy and the Hōkū voters agree, that's rarer than it sounds.

Here's the local wrinkle worth flagging. Peʻa is often billed these days as "Maui's Kalani Peʻa," because that's where he lives and works now. But he is, by birth and upbringing, a Hilo boy — Panaʻewa through and through — and that matters to how this island hears him. When he plays the Palace on August 21 for his tenth-anniversary show, that's not a tour stop. That's a homecoming, in the exact room where a kid from East Hawaiʻi could once only dream of headlining.

Why this matters: contemporary Hawaiian music spends a lot of energy fighting the assumption that "authentic" means "unchanged." Kuini is the counterargument — Grammy-decorated, unapologetically modern, and sung largely in a language the record helps keep alive for the next kid with a speech impediment and a big voice. That's not preservation. That's growth.

Put it on before the homecoming show. Then buy a ticket and watch Panaʻewa's own take his own stage.

Sources: Kuini (album) — Wikipedia); Maui's Kalani Peʻa wins fourth Grammy award — Hawaii News Now; Kalani Peʻa celebrates 10 years of music — The Maui News; Kalani Peʻa — Wikipedia