Conversations with Poli M

Today we’d like to introduce you to Poli M.

Hi Poli, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was raised to listen, and listening has become my greatest strength. Over time and with the mentorship of my brother, aunties, uncles and grandparents, I have learned what it means to make a musical decision. Music and me have developed a relationship of mutual devotion. As long as I am attentive to music, then music tends to me.
So anyway I began with ‘ukulele at the feet of my grandma, and then I began to learn bass and guitar with Mr. Yu the band teacher at Kaimuki, then I started dabbling in many other instruments including cornet, banjo, mandolin and drums. I also began to explore the world of music production in my teens, at first very tentatively and then diving in full-force when I turned 18. Now I have several homemade projects under my belt, and I’m working on a number of producer credits. I am also in the process with my brothers of turning our home into a house show venue! Hopefully that will begin in early 2027 and we’ll run a couple shows a month.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It is never a smooth road! There is always the ever-present threat of endless bills which wait for no project. As such I am working several side jobs, and always looking for more. My brothers all work, my eldest brother has seemingly an endless roster of jobs. Money is always a problem. Besides that eternal practical issue, there’s also the bouts of feeling like I don’t actually deserve to be heard, that I have nothing worth saying, popularly dubbed “imposter syndrome” (though I think that may be a misnomer?). But if it’s true because nothing “really matters” since we’ll all die and everyone who will ever remember us will die, then it’s as true as it is not true, since if nothing matters then we might as well, and the point of the work of music is necessarily ephemeral, it’s the eternal today. And I would also never say that anything anybody else has in their heart that they wish to share through art is “not worth it,” so why should I believe that about myself? In the cosmic tapestry we are all equals, subject to the twists and turns of fortune and the inevitable end of it all.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I feel that every artist who creates from the heart is both set apart and wholly one with the community of artists around the world. The devotion to art is what keeps us alive, we live to serve life’s truth, which includes love, beauty, anger, ugliness, fear, hope and sorrow.
I’m proud of my tenacious ability to keep working on my practice, despite rejection after rejection, despite numerous dead ends and disappointments. If I’m too broke to hire a producer (who well deserve compensation!) I just learn to do it myself, scavenging free or cheap equipment, dedicating hours to practicing different recording techniques on open source software. If nobody will book me to play at their club, I’ll contact independent artists who are touring the area and get invited to jump on their bill. There’s always a way!

What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
I have learned that one of the rarest qualities you’ll find trying to navigate the music business, is a genuine openness to the strange and unusual. Oftentimes I think this industry is characterized as being at the forefront of progress, pushing popular culture and causing changes through the power of art. In fact, many things that are being touted as “new” and “boundary pushing,” “genre-defying” and “innovative,” have been common in the underground culture, sometimes for years before they break into mainstream culture. Most of the people who work “successfully” in the music industry are really just vulturishly picking up trends when they feel they have the momentum to be economically feasible, never taking a chance on something that they aren’t sure is gonna be a hit. It’s the same reason you have endless sequels and prequels to established superhero corporate franchises, though I think there’s a little nuance with some of these, such as Spiderman, which I think a lot of people wish will live on eternally out of a kind of fear of death. In any case, as we’ve seen with several indie films over the past few years, the public is actually hungry for interesting art. Work that subverts all their expectations, even work that does not leave them feeling satisfied. Things that don’t follow a formula. So a lesson I’ve learned is that it is very difficult to find a team of people who believe in your work if it doesn’t seem immediately commercially viable.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.polimana.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/polimanamusic/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@polimanamusic

Image Credits
Ester Araujo – South Porch Demos cover art