The rise of popularity for Keep It Aloha Podcast

HONOLULU (KHON2) – With all the traffic that we must deal with today, maybe we can put more positive messages on the radio rather than just listening to music.

Or, if you are doing some work around the house, put on some great podcasts that you can learn and be inspired at the same time.

We want to bring it to the Keep It Aloha Podcast, and there is nobody who has a better name than Kamaka Dias.

Keep It Aloha Podcast, the popularity of it has grown and I don’t think it has been out for a very long time.

Tell us a little about what Keep It Aloha Podcast is all about.

“So, I have only been doing it for a little over two and a half years,” says Dias.

“We started it as the Hawaii Verse Podcast through my other business Hawaii Verse which is an online platform that supports local businesses. So, we started at a radio station, Summit Media, with just a little Go-Pro on the windowsill and then a year in, my producer started to produce it. We upped the quality, started posting more clips, and within a year or so, it got so big that people thought the podcast was Hawaii Verse. So, I had to split it, rename it Keep It Aloha, and we have been doing it ever since. We have been talking stories with amazing guests, learning lots of cool stories, and it’s almost like therapy, you know? Talking story with everybody.”

Well, if you’re talking about aloha, I would hope so.

In terms of that, Keep It Aloha, what are you talking about in your conversations?

“Mainly we like to focus on the guests and their stories, showing their life and their stories, going deeper than you can on clips on social media but all based around aloha and what ‘keeping it aloha’ really is because everybody keeps it aloha in different ways,” says Dias.

“Everybody has different account of what aloha is, how aloha is in their lives, different actions of aloha. We talk about all of that, and I like to say that keeping it aloha to me always changes and it is whatever that is more important in my life at that moment, whether that is patience, kindness, compassion, stuff like that.”

Through this journey of yours, what have you learned?

And in terms of the public, what do they like to listen to?

“People love anything about Hawaii,” says Dias.

“If you have any clip, educational clip like Honolulu/Hanalulu, anything about Olelo Hawaii. I always feel like our culture and out language hasn’t really been portrayed in the best way in mainstream media over the last few decades and I feel our strength is, being an independent podcast, we can talk about whatever we want, and nobody is going to tell us what to do and what not to do. Even though sometimes maybe they should tell us, hey don’t say this.”

Which is aloha.

“Exactly, keeping it real. It’s another way you keep it aloha,” says Dias.

“So, I just feel that people relate to a lot of the things we say. A lot of the things that we say, people think about, but they don’t talk about, so I think that is why people gravitate towards it. Also, I’m just a local boy from Hilo who has lived abroad and came back home and just sharing his life with everybody.”

I want to actually touch upon that aside from everything else you do, Kamaka Dias actually has his own published book that is called “So Far” but this has stemmed from your involvement in the Peace Corps.

Tell us a little bit about that experience.

“I was there for three years, I joined right after graduating from UH Manoa and I taught English for two years and then I extended another year and worked with a community organization,” says Dias.

“That was just a blog that I had for my three years and turned it into a book during 2020 when I was doing the race to 50K to pay off my student loans just doing odd jobs. So, I started it in 2020. Didn’t finish it until 2021 and that is when I published it.”

Thank you very much, Kamaka.

“And check out Hawaii Verse at the Made in Hawaii Festival coming up in August.”

There you go, Made in Hawaii Festival and so much more.

For more on Keep It Aloha Podcast, click here.

For more on Hawaii Verse, click here.

For more on the non-profit organization Hoaaina, click here.