Sunday, January 27, 2008

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole


So this guy on the right is Israel Kamakawiwo'ole of Hawaii. He was known as Iz. Iz passed away back in '97 from respiratory problems due to his weight. The man at one point weighed 758 pounds!

I just recently heard some of this guy's music, BJ Penn the newly crowned Lightweight Champion of the UFC, is a hawaiian and was playing Iz's music as his entrance. ...and it was beautiful, I had to have it. Saddly I cant find a decent copy of the particular song, however his myspace (yeah even long dead musicians have myspace profiles) has some selected songs that can give you an idea of how beautiful this man's voice is. Specifically listen to his renditions of "What a wonderful world", "Twinkle twinkle little star" and "Over the rainbow".

Now clearly this kind of music isn't for everybody but I really dig it. The man believed in racial equality, something that there is a lot of animosity with in Hawaii. ...and you can just hear in his voice how much he enjoyed life and singing. In short this guy fucking kicks ass! I'm buying the album "Facing Future" which has the particular song that BJ Penn used, and I was unfortunately unable to link to.

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