 "Photo: Destiny Mata")
Music business freshman Chaun Laa-oili tattooed “strive for the best” in Polynesian across his chest.
The Honolulu-native hopes to achieve his best through hip-hop music.
His stage name is Sean City and he is about to land his “first paid gig on the mainland.” He was hired to perform 11 a.m. Friday in Loftin Student Center.
He decided to attend this college after a challenging life in Honolulu.
Laa-oili went through the foster care system moving in and out of about 10 different homes while living on the island. Finally, he was adopted into an Army family as a teenager. They were transferred to another city and he went along until he got homesick and decided to move back to Hawaii with his sister.
He became involved with illegal substances and experienced financial hardships including the deaths of both biological parents.
“I was just wasting away,” he said. “That was one time when music wasn’t that important.”
For more than 11 years, Laa-oili has gravitated toward music with early influences by his mother’s favorites Run DMC and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. He was also inspired when he was younger by watching Busta Rhymes on MTV.
“Music was one thing that was always there for me,” he said.
Laa-oili recalls rapping his own songs along with a ukulele, a small Hawaiian guitar, when he was 12 years old.
He said most of the mainstream music on the island was Hawaiian or reggae and he had little opportunity. He played shows with a couple friends but grew tired of letdowns and indie labels making false promises.
After trying to work his way into the local music scene, he eventually decided that to really break into the hip-hop music industry, he would have to leave his hometown.
He reconnected with his foster family and they offered to help him get his life back on track here in Texas. His foster father, stationed in San Antonio, helped him find this college’s music business program.
Today, the 23-year-old still writes all of his own songs, produces beats and lays down tracks at home including a song he wrote while in Hawaii called “Let’s Get Away.”
Most of his songs are about relationships. But he tries to rap and sing about topics that are more realistic calling his music style “rapping and smooth R&B.”
His goal is to work hard and try to get discovered. He says he’s just waiting for his chance but isn’t ruling out working for a record label and moving his way up.
“I had to work for everything I had,” he said. “You’ve got to try to do it yourself.”
Laa-oili will perform from 11 a.m.-11:45 a.m. Friday in the round in Loftin.
For more information or to listen to Sean City’s music go to his MySpace page.
Keep up the dream of your music and it will happen for you- no doubt about it. Good Luck and Miss you.
Aloha from Hawaii,
Aunty Bobbi
For all u peeps that don't know, Sean City is the s***!
- The One & Only, Maiskees