A few months ago I received a text from Mondokane, a musician and artist from Maui. He was referred to me by Mitch Hazama, my bandleader for Asian Blend, an amazing band that I’ve sung with many times over the last decade.
Mondokane was working on his latest album called Starstruck, a collection of duets with selected artists from Hawaii. He wanted to know if I’d be interested in collaborating. He picked the song “Give Me One Reason,” written and originally recorded by Tracy Chapman, for us to cover as a duet.
I was honored that Mondokane thought of me and quickly jumped at the opportunity to be part of his project. We have a professional recording studio at home, so it wouldn’t be a challenge that I wasn’t physically in Hawaii. And lucky for me, my husband, élan, who is also a super talented music producer would help me with the project. Mondokane sent me the track, élan recorded my singing parts and sent the vocal stems to Rob Tsuhako, the engineer for the album.
Starstruck was released through Island Heritage Music on November 30, 2019 and features the musical talents of multiple award winning artists and close friends of Mondokane. The album includes eight original compositions and two re-imagined classics.
Listen to our version of Give Me One Reason on YouTube.
Support an artist’s dream and download Give Me One Reason on iTunes.
Give Me One Reason links via Songwhip to all the major platforms so that you can play, save and share the song.
Thank you for letting me share my passion for music with you. Please let me know if you had the chance to listen, download or simply add the song to your playlist. It would be greatly appreciated. I’d also love to hear what you thought of our rendition.
Live EMpowered,
Marlene
