YOZA

Yoza’s story begins with a small instrument in small hands. A ukulele at five years old. A sound that became her compass. By ten, she was already sharing stages with Roy Sakuma’s Super Keiki, learning not just notes, but presence.

Music carried her into spaces few expect. Opening sets for Kings of Leon, One Republic, Ginuwine, Cisco, Ben Folds. Standing in the lights, where every chord had to mean something. She traveled outward, festivals in Dallas, in Australia’s Blue Mountains, yet always circled back to Hawaii. To Willie K, her mentor. To Makana. To the collaborations that felt less like performance and more like family.

In 2013 she released her first album. YOZA. It wasn’t just a debut, it was recognition. Three nominations at the Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards, Hawaii’s Grammys. Female Vocalist of the Year. R&B Album of the Year. A moment where the islands’ own sound found its way to a broader stage.

Two years later came Prologue. Recorded by Hanan Rubinstein—a producer whose hands had shaped music alongside Alicia Keys, Ed Sheeran, Sara Bareilles. The EP carried Yoza into new territory. More nominations. More songs that lived beyond the studio, carried in cars, headphones, late nights.

But awards and stages don’t fully capture her. Yoza is a voice in motion, soulful, sharp, unguarded. A voice shaped by Hawaii, but restless enough to move anywhere. Each project is less about arrival than return. Return to why she began. Return to the instrument that fit her hands as a child. Return to the truth that songs only matter when they carry the weight of being lived.

This is Yoza. An artist defined not by genre, not by place, but by a relentless pull toward honesty in sound.