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Pacific's rising son
By HENRY OKOLE and SOLOMON KANTHA
Jason Hershey a.k.a. O-Shen is a name
that is synonymous with the new blend of tribal, hip-hop, and
island reggae music. They call him Papua Niugini's first son and
Hawai?i's adopted son. He is also the first artist in PNG to rap
in tok pisin. O-Shen, 32, now lives in Hawai?i but travels
frequently to PNG.
He was raised from infancy until the age 15 in PNG by his American
parents, his father was a medical missionary in Finchafen in the
seventies.
O-Shen was raised and educated in the village of Butaweng in
Morobe province and lived in Wau for over two years.
He grew up just like any other local boy and developed a strong
sense of cultural identity from a very young age.
We met O-Shen at his Pupukea home located on a scenic hillside
landscape overlooking the North Shore of Hawai'i, a two-hour bus
ride from the city of Honolulu.
The first few minutes of greeting will surprise any newcomer from
PNG that the white boy with dreadlocks resembles a quintessential
Papua New Guinean with his tok pisin slangs and fluency. He is
quick with a joke and can be heard mimicking the tok pisin accent
of different parts of PNG.
O-Shen says that he is someone who has had the benefit of having
lived in two different worlds, a most traditional and the ultimate
modern one, where the former has had a significant influence on
his life and music career.
He grew up in Butaweng, a place he regards as his primary home. He
is eloquent in the local Yabim language. Apart from this language,
he has recorded songs in pidgin, Nakanai, Aroma, Kiwa, Rigo, and
has also included Hawaiian, Fijian, Tahitian, Tongan and Samoan
elements in his music, an indication of his motif in embracing the
different cultures of the Pacific. But he has always kept his
music rooted in the sights, sounds and soul of his homeland, PNG.
In an exclusive interview with The Honolulu Advertiser in early
2006 O-Shen reportedly said America was really a foreign place to
him when he moved back with his parents to the US.
He felt so weird being surrounded by Caucasian people. "I was
never in a room full of white kids. Once I got to America, it was
such a different thing. It was about the clothes you wear and your
style of shoes. I am used to being real".
O-Shen saw the contrast between the two worlds and came to
appreciate the simplicity of rural life. Most of his experiences
and views are distinctly expressed in his songs. "Music is a form
of expression of my opinion", says O-Shen.
When asked how he coined his name, he says it rhymes with "ocean"
and is something that connects the people of the Pacific. Perhaps
it is fitting for a person who loves swimming, surfing and
canoeing.
O-Shen speaks fondly of PNG's local artists. He can be heard
singing or humming to the tunes of Haus Boi, Quakes, K-Duman, and
Leonard Kania. He vividly recalls the day he saw Sanguma performed
in Goroka in the 1980s - a performance that left a lasting
impression in his young life. He says that George Telek was his
idol and a primary source of inspiration.
O-Shen's passion in music took a decisive step when he became a
drummer for the Langema Band of Finch.
Years later, the boy from Butaweng got his first big break after
he sent a demo tape to renowned Hawai?ian local musician George
Fiji.
Fiji was so impressed that he invited O-Shen to do a PNG pidgin
rap on his 2000 "Gratitude" disc.
O-Shen recorded his debut CD, "Iron Youth", soon after, and went
on to win the 2001 Na Hoku Hanohano award for reggae album of the
year in Honolulu.
He has since recorded five albums both in PNG and Hawai?i and is
now working on the sixth which will feature the popular Jamaican
group Third World in one of his songs. One of his songs has been
featured as a sound track in the movie "50 First Dates" starring
Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore.
O-Shen has stormed the music industry in Hawai?i and is labeled as
one-of-a-kind artist and a master of dialect and diversity. By
integrating a powerful rhythmic mix of tribal, hip-hop and reggae
and songs in different languages of the pacific in his music, O-Shen
has drawn a large following from the region.
He is widely popular in all the regions of the Pacific. Perhaps
the song "Meri Lewa" in his award winning "Iron Youth" album was
the song that brought O-Shen to stardom in the Pacific.
Even though most of his songs are sung in pidgin and other PNG
languages, his fans in Micronesia and Polynesia could sing them
flawlessly without bothering to understand the words. A friend
from Palau told us that even though he doesn't know the pidgin
words in O-Shen's songs, he likes his music anyway.
O-Shen is a PNG-bred rising star of the Pacific and is gaining a
huge following and popularity in the region.
His down-to-earth and easy going demeanor has easily perplexed
people, especially those who expect him to behave like some
big-time musician.
We were with O-Shen at a Pacific islands gathering one Sunday
afternoon when we overheard some Marshall islanders debating as to
whether that was really him sitting among the boys. Soon a long
queue developed next to him for photo shots after the islanders
confirmed his identity.
O-Shen writes most of his songs. One needs to listen carefully to
most of his songs to hear the philosophical person singing. He is
passionate about the preservation of PNG traditions and culture
just as he is about the environment. He sings about political
issues such as justice and peace. With a foot grounded in two
different worlds, he recognizes and sings about the rapid social
changes in the country.
"PNG is changing rapidly and a lot of people are being educated
and are leaving their villages for the cities and forgetting their
language and cultures", says O-Shen. He talks about how he was
struck by the level of materialism where a lot of people have
given up their cultures and traditions in favor of the urban life
style.
"There are a lot of people that get brainwashed. So what I try to
do through my music is make people feel proud of their culture.
Don't throw away all the old ways and adopt new ways. A big
concern I worry about with PNG is people are not having pride in
their culture and abandoning it for Western ways," O-Shen laments.
"European colonization has changed a lot of our traditions,
language and even food. People are not making gardens like in the
past and have moved to towns and cities in search of better
lifestyle and they forget the value of land and our traditions",
he adds.
In a way, O-Shen has captured an international stage where he is
enthusiastically promoting PNG.
When interviewed by The Honolulu Advertiser about what he thinks
of PNG he said: "I hope the uniqueness of what I do and the
uniqueness of the region the music comes from can be expressed.
It's not known to the world and is a very exotic place. It's one
of the last places with untouched jungles and tribes in the world.
It has a real future in eco-tourism, surfing and that kind of
thing...One thing I'd like to do is promote PNG and make it known
that it's the biggest tropical island in the world. How do you not
know about it? Why do you still think it's in Africa? It's the
biggest island in the world if you don't count Australia-so to
promote the country and capture an international audience, that's
the big goal".
 
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