Common Threads: Part II with Kahnma Karnga – Biggest Thing Out of Kaimuki!

Kahnma performs at her ‘Bridges’ video release party in Waikiki. (photo courtesy of Kahnma)

Kahnma Karnga escaped civil war in Liberia as a child, immigrating to the United States. In her new life, she learned to navigate an unfamiliar culture, finally following her passions to Hawaii where she re-connected to her African roots through the Aloha spirit and Hawaiian cultural values. In Part II of our interview with Kahnma we explore her personal battle with cancer, becoming a mother, and how she continues to express her most authentic self through music…

EM: When did you become a mom?

KK: Ten years ago, I met this guy and fell madly in love with him in one day, I swear. I was like you’re the one! We talked about having babies that day, and the first time I was intimate with him, I got pregnant. Then three months into the pregnancy, you know, I realized he wasn’t the one!  So 10 years ago, I became a mom, and then 4 years later, I had my second baby.

EM: You had both your babies at home, why did you decide home birth was the right decision for you?

KK: During the war (in Liberia), there was a period when we spent some time in my mom’s village, on her farm, with the village people. There was a woman who was a cousin of mine, and she was pregnant. I remember she went into labor on the farm. I was in my mother’s room, and they were behind the house. I still don’t fully understand the reason, but in my language, whenever they’re talking about giving birth, they reference a ‘behind the house spirit,’ and I remember that woman giving birth behind the house. My mother’s midwife was the midwife, and there were some other women around too. I remember the crying and the moaning, all of that, and it stayed with me somehow. There was a healthy baby after and everybody was happy. It was a celebration.

I had a perspective from different worlds, so I knew that existed, and I knew it was fine. It was a happy, celebrated event. So the thought of home birth wasn’t anything strange to me. When I was in Atlanta, a friend of mine was having a baby and asked me to be there, and I ended up at that birth. She wanted a home birth but ended up getting a cesarean. I saw the fighting back and forth in the hospital, not giving her what she wanted and really not making it about her. I also knew some midwives in Atlanta when I lived there, so home birth has always been on my radar. When I got pregnant, I knew I had options, so I explored my options and then chose to do a home birth.

EM: What was giving birth like for you?

KK:  For the first one, I told my midwife, Lori Kimata, maybe two days before I started labor, ‘What concerns me the most is that I don’t have any concerns.’ So I went into this feeling fully ready. Then it happened, and I was like, ‘Oh, shit, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing!’ So my first birth was interesting. It was really long – twenty-nine hours. I felt every bit of it, and it was a hard labor, but I learned so much. When that baby came out, I was like, ‘I could do this again, a million times.’

On the second birth, I knew a little bit more, and it was a lot easier. It was 19 hours, and I feel like I was way more in control of my breath. In my first birth, everyone kept saying, ‘Surrender, just surrender,” and I was like, “I don’t know what that means! What am I surrendering? I don’t know.” So this time around, I was like, Oh yeah. Surrender that control. Surrender that, you think you know what you’re doing. In my mind, I was like, I can’t do this, I give up, and when you give up, I feel like that’s when the baby comes. For me, that’s when the baby came, when I felt like I couldn’t, when I got to that point where I thought I absolutely cannot do it, I did it. So I kind of tricked myself the second time around. I told myself I can’t do this, and then the baby came.

In my experience, home birth was always beautiful. To bring life into the world in your own environment with your own energy around. To have candle lights and the people that you know and love with you. A midwife who kisses your belly and rubs your feet. It was magical. I feel like my children are lucky to come into the world that way.

EM: So how did becoming a mother change you?

KK: Well, I became way more patient, way more tolerant, nurturing. I feel like becoming a mother just didn’t make me a mother of that one kid. It opened my eyes to mothering everybody. I raise my children in an intentional way. Being that deliberate and present with them, you really get to feel the human spirit from a child’s perspective, and it’s the most beautiful thing. Because I treat them how I treat them, I want to treat everybody like that and receive that same thing back. When you’re real and authentic with children, you’re real and authentic with you, and it feels good.

EM: What are some of the most important things that you want to impart to them as they’re growing up?

KK: Be kind and always use your chi for the power of good! But really, just be on the path of awakening and consciousness. Learn yourself every day. To just connect with yourself and choose awareness, and that has nothing to do with me. I want them to be conscious in their existence, to be aware. That’s what I want them to have.

Kahnma Karnga at Christmas Tree Park in Kaimuki, Oahu. (Ronen Zilberman photo HonoluluVibes.com)

EM: Let’s talk about music. You’ve been a professional singer for a long time, has music always been a part of your life?

KK: Yes, music has always been a part of my life. My mother sings, she’s a singer in church, and so I’ve always been around that. I sang in choirs in church and in school. Music was just the thing for me. I never imagined doing anything else. I don’t know if I thought of pursuing music as a career until I was 19 or 20. I wasn’t always good at it. I grew into being a writer and a vocalist. I actually saw my transition because it’s something I just really wanted to do. So I worked on it.

EM: That’s interesting to know because from the outside, it’s easy to assume that you were just born with all that natural ability.

KK: No, I worked on it. I think there was a switch that happened, and it happened here in Hawaii when it came to performing. I used to sing background for Macho, and he is this really quiet man, very calm and easygoing. I used to go to rehearsals with him, and everything was very subdued. Then the first show I ever did with him showed this side that I never knew was there. I was like, ‘who is that? How can he go from that to that?’ Because I was so in my head about who I am, even on-stage, to just switch to a whole other character like that was wild to me. I asked him about that, and he said, ‘you just gotta do the show. Showtime is showtime.’ So I watched, and I started to analyze myself, ‘are you letting go, or are you in your head about it?’

When I finally did let go, it was with Jamarek (West African dance music group on Oahu). I remember that clearly from ten years ago. It was a defining moment. I was in the crowd doing my Jamarek thing, and I’m still in my head, you know, but there was this moment where I forgot the words, and I didn’t know what else to sing. I couldn’t come up with any more lyrics, so I had to improvise. People started responding to me as I’m throwing out these calls and these chants, and then I let go. I was just in it and allowing myself to feel that. From that point on, I was like, ‘oh, that’s how you do it, you just don’t give a fuck.’ You go out there, and you just have confidence in what you’re doing and allow that to speak. Singing African songs helps too because people don’t know what I’m saying. You can only feel me, but you can’t connect with me if I’m in my head. You have to feel what I’m giving you.

Jamarek, a West-African inspired dance band has been performing across Oahu for over 10 years. (photo courtesy of Jamarek)

EM: You write a lot of your own lyrics, how does your life play into your compositions?

KK:  For a long time, I used to write only love songs even when I was going through traumatic things. Whenever I had hard times in my life, I would write the most beautiful love songs that had nothing to do with what was going on. It was like an escape. I always wrote what I wanted to experience rather than what I was going through. Recently, maybe three years ago, I went through a separation with my husband, which was the most traumatic time in my life, and there was so much to write about. I couldn’t even beat around the bush. It was then that I started writing more in my native language because I could communicate about the things I was feeling easier and in a poetic way. My father once told me, ‘You haven’t cried until you’re crying in your native tongue.’ Isn’t that deep?

EM: How is music medicine for you?

KK: Oh, man. Not being able to perform these last three months took such a toll on me. I realized that’s my most honest place. The stage is the place where I can talk, and nobody talks back! It’s a space where I can really give myself without permission without suggestions. It’s just what I have to offer without anything else other than the musicians, in this with me. Then I get feedback from the audience about how they feel about it: ‘We love it!’ That feels really good when you can show up in your full, authentic self without trying to be anything for anybody, and people positively receive you.

I feel like in everything else, there are too many opinions. I can’t talk about politics, it’ll offend people. I can’t talk about race. I can’t talk about the way I raise my children. But I can sing this song with these beats, and I feel like I get to express myself at my fullest potential without any blockages when I’m on-stage. I think that’s how I’m able to say this is me completely. Everything else aside, I’m not Liberian. I’m not black, I’m not this or that, I’m just performing this song, this is my energy. I’m just communicating my soul without the form, yes!

EM: You’re a single mom and an artist; both are huge blessings and significant challenges at the same time. How do you cope with the stresses that come with juggling these roles?

KK:  I learned early on to separate myself as an artist from me as a mom because I love my children. Whenever you’re doing something that you really love with your kids, it can get messy. It can become about them, you know, because everything we do when we’re doing it, is about them. Music is something that I’ve always done. It’s something that I really love. This is my thing, and I didn’t want to make it about them. They’re a part of it somehow because they’re a part of my life. But I separate my artistry from my parenting. When I’m doing my stuff, I’m doing my stuff. When I’m doing mommy stuff. I’m in mommy mode.

Of course, I sing to them and all of those things. But as far as the seriousness of what I do in performance and rehearsals, I try my best to separate it. That way, I’m able to stay focused on what I’m doing and not blur the lines because the kids can take over everything. So I definitely found a space to continue to be Kahnma and then be a mom to them.

EM: What kind of advice would you give to other single moms?

KK:  The key thing for me has been to keep your identity, keep who you are. You’re a parent, and your life has changed in many ways, but maintain a little presence about yourself. Because they’ll grow and be their own people, and you’ll still be who you are. They’re in your care for a short time. If you allow yourself to lose all of who you are for that short period. It’s not good.

EM: You’re also a cancer survivor. How did you cope with that news, and how did you heal yourself?

KK: You know, I was a very calm person through this. I felt I had that thing in my body for almost four years before they actually took it out. It was in my left kidney.

I was always too afraid to go to the hospital to find out what it was. So I just coped with it. So, long story short, I was in the doctor’s office, and he’s reading off his list, ‘you have stage three kidney cancer. Blah, blah, blah, blah… it doesn’t look good’, you know. Basically, he’s telling me that I’m dying, but I didn’t feel like I was dying. So whenever he would say something, I would say, ‘I rebuke that, I rebuke that.’ Then he looks at my friend who was there with me and said, ‘I don’t think your friend comprehends what I’m telling her.’

And so I never allowed it to be a death sentence. I just stuck with the facts. I didn’t get into the medical jargon of it all. I knew I had a tumor in my kidney, and the tumor had to come out. I told myself, ‘the doctors will remove the cancer with the kidney, and I’ll be fine.’ But I also understood my sickness on a spiritual level. Years before I got this, I was in a toxic relationship with a lot of fear. When your spirit communicates with your body, the kidney holds your fears.

I felt like I was no longer in that environment. I had grown from those thoughts patterns and toxic ways of thinking and eating and all of those things. So, I told myself it was just the residual from that lifestyle that I had to deal with, and this space I’m in now can’t hold cancer in my body. Once they took the tumor out and tested all the stuff around the kidney, everything was negative for cancer. So, I decided I was OK, and I left.

EM: What did you gain from overcoming that obstacle?

KK: Cancer taught me a lot. I learned that you have so much control over your mind. It was mind over matter, and I just stuck with my narrative. Cancer taught me how strong I really am because I didn’t let anybody’s story penetrate me. That’s what happens. You just start attaching yourself to other people’s stories about what’s going to happen to you. If you buy into that and believe it, it happens. The body responds. It’s crucial to drown out the noise when you go through those kinds of things.

Kahnma Karnga, the biggest thing out of Kaimuki! (Ronen Zilberman photo HonoluluVibes.com)

EM: What do you still want to accomplish in your life?

KK: I want my music to be heard. I feel like I put good music out there. I want it to be heard on a large scale at some point. I have this vision of me as an artist, so I’m just gonna say it and put it out there: I want to be the biggest thing out of Kaimuki! That’s it, that’s my dream. I want to be a tourist attraction that people come to Kaimuki to see.

EM: Get ready, Kaimuki!

KK: My space is going to be called The House of Kahnma. And this is where we’re gonna uplift the community through music!

EM: I can’t wait to see it unfold! Mahalo Kahnma.

Miss Part I of our interview with Kahnma?

Common Threads: Part I with Kahnma Karnga on Coming to America

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by Erica McMillan