The concept of "SOLJAH" started getting kicked around in 1990 while I was at CSU. It began with a doodle of a happy faced sun that got "tagged" on all my friends jeans, all the desks I sat at, all the walls I passed. Everybody seemed to love it, so I began to paint "SOL" concepts on the dorm room walls I slept under. To make a long story short I got kicked out of Colorado for irreconcilable differences.
Back at UH, I took a job silk screening for "Hello Hawaii", and at nights they would let me do a couple SOLJAH designs. I took a graphic art class and got a "C" from a stupid old lady. I began surfing Pipe, and Waimea religiously. In 1992 Sean Yano, at the time repping "SPLIT" needed help doing a party at the Cannon Club. SOLJAH was sponsoring a reggae night at Compadres, and we used that, & Radio Free Hawaii as a platform to promote.
Over 2500 people showed up, we made some $$$, and we knew we were on to something.Never went back to school...
I took out a loan, bought my own silk screen machine, and started flying me and all my friends to the ASR shows. We lived like Rock Stars, threw the biggest surf parties Hawaii had ever seen, and became permanent fixtures on the radio scene, and every now and then we would deliver some clothing to the stores.
We did a photo shoot with some Japanese guys as a favor. They said it was a story on the hottest surf lines in Hawaii. I was like "What do you mean everybody is wearing Soljah!" The looked around and realized they were surrounded by about a dozen surf boyz, and girlz all wearing Soljah. We took them to some secret spots and by sunset they were like: "I think you'll make the cover, you ever heard of Fine?"
Fine turned out to be one of the biggest mags in Japan, or "The Fashion Bible". We closed a deal with one of the up and coming giants of Tokyo, paid off my loan. The next decade was a flash in the pan: cannon clubs, after dark, the groove, blaisdell garden, liquids, pipeline, don ho's, demo derby's, kauai, japan, maui, big island, killa floatillas, the bomb, xtreme, island rhythms, hawaiian kine, etc... (and may have forgotten a few)
In 2002 took 2 years off of the scene to make the family solid. In 2004 we brought in "Soljah Fight Night" a Shooto Double World Championship, from Japan, to the NBC. One of the heaviest mixed martial arts line-ups Hawaii has ever seen. Over 6,500 people showed up, and we kicked off "$5 Pitchers and Rubba Slippas" at the Hard Rock.
Back in business, and stronger than ever, we are now doing $5 Pitchers at Lulu's (O'ahu) every Friday night, it's beyond capacity. With over a year of success on oahu, we began Friday Nites at Lulu's on Maui, now that's beyond capacity. Next we may try Lulu's in Kona.
I am also getting back into t-shirt designing for local shops, and sales on soljah.com you should see it in the market by holiday 2007. We are still the hardest clothing to find in the Hawaiian islands, but now we want to make it "Not Impossible" to find.
