The Business of Dreams with Makana

Makana is an award-winning slack-key guitar player, singer/songwriter, and composer, based in Hawaii.

He’s performed for presidents and other world leaders and had his music featured on the Grammy-nominated soundtrack for The Descendants.

When we connected for this interview, Makana was in the midst of a joyful renewal as an artist and human being.

Among the topics we discussed in this interview:

His childhood mentorship with slack-key legend, Sonny Chillingsworth.
Playing for a career since moving out at age 19 (over 20 years ago)
The balance between honoring tradition and evolving an art form.
The Big Lie in the music industry.
The intersections of art, activism, and community.
On Kuleana: why rights and responsibility are inseparable.
Why he values freedom over fame and turned down big traditional deals.
On psychological brand management and managing access to his work.
How producing hundreds of songs over the past two years has helped him reclaim a sense of creative play and limitless possibility: “There are no boundaries to what I can create now.”
What’s in Makana’s Artist Survival Kit.
On what happens when you combine mastery of your craft with human connection and vulnerability.
The Business of Dreams: A Primer for the aspiring artist.
Why most artists struggle.
The importance of captivating an audience in the first fifteen seconds.
What’s next: Consolidating control of his art, a full reset/relaunch of his online presence, and putting the final touches on a Broadway musical script.

To learn more about Makana, you can visit his website.

Intro Song: “Unlimited Love” (instrumental version) by Ethan Freckleton & Lucas Clebsch

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