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Honolulu Hapa

By Tom W. Bell and Glen Whitman

"Damn their lies and trust your eyes. Dig every kind of fox!" I here sing one for the freedom to mix it up as you and your honey alone see fit:

"Hapa" means "mixed race" in Hawaiian. Skin-tone mash ups have profoundly enriched my life, first with the Honolulu Hapa herself and then with our own little hapas. Honolulu Hapa celebrates coloring across the lines, knocks racism, and gives a shout-out to Loving v. Virginia, 88 U.S. 1 (1967)?the case where the U.S. Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws as unconstitutional restraints on personal liberty.

As with the prior four songs I've posted in this recent series (Take Up the Flame, Sensible Khakis, Nice to Be Wanted, and Hello, Jonah,), Honolulu Hapa comes with a Creative Commons license that allows pretty liberal use by all but commercial licensees, who have to pay a tithe to one of my favorite causes. Honolulu Hapa aims to help Creative Commons, an organization that helps all of us to mix?and remix?it up. Unlike those other songs, however, Honolulu Hapa adds a special 'unrestricted use" term effective on June 12, Loving Day.

With Honolulu Hapa, I conclude my recent series of freedom-loving music videos. Like it or not, though, I've got more music-making plans. Next, I'll record some good studio versions of those (and perhaps some other) songs. Eventually, I'd like to release a fundraising CD, one that might help out some good causes. Silly? Yeah, I guess so. But it does add another data point in support of my hypothesis: Freedom has more fun.

[Crossposted at Agoraphilia and Technology Liberation Front.]

Full post as published by Agoraphilia on December 19, 2008 (boomark / email).