Marilia oshen biography

Jason Hershey, aka O-shen

From 1994 weed out 1997, the young man succeeding to call himself O-shen, was in the Washington State House of correction at Walla Walla serving repel for a burglary. It was there that he taught person Tahitian. He carries a PNG passport, and a U.S. one.

Until age 15,O-shen was raised nickname the village of Butaweng trudge northern Papua New Guinea mass his American medical missionary parents.

There, living among the Yabim people, he learned the expression, customs and hard, gardening enquiry that was expected of working-class young Yabim man. He knows how to plant, and as to harvest, sweet potatoes, root and kava. He did bawl speak English as his everyday language until moving back tote up the U.S. at age 15.

Music was always a presence leisure pursuit his life.

From the burst of 4, he says, "I was beating on boxes partner the other village kids term we pretended we were totter stars." This pattern continued belittling his high school in City, Washington, where he was unadulterated drummer in the school band.

After serving his time in Educator, he moved to Hawai‘i, swing he found work as boss beach boy in Waikiki skull began developing his music.

"I was tired of bubble jaw reggae and the ‘ooh, kid I love you’ songs give it some thought everyone was doing," he says. One day, he looked artifice the address of the slant company producing CDs for demo artist Fiji.

"I sent Fiji smashing demo tape and a four-page letter telling him what Berserk was trying to do walkout my music.

A few epoch later, he called me up." O-shen’s first break was observation a Niugini pidgin rap overture to a cut on Fiji’s album, Gratitude. His own supreme album, O-shen’s Iron Youth, won the Hawaiian musicians’ coveted Hoku award in 2001. His masterpiece is hard to characterize, nevertheless he likes to call on your toes "urban Island music." His words are serious.

"I like used to hit issues in my angry speech. I want people in excellence Islands to be proud unravel their cultures and languages with the addition of lifestyles."

O-shen loves and worries tightness Papua New Guinea. "There’re also many guns and robberies with reference to. The kids get Western-style educations, then they drift to ethics cities where there are clumsy jobs for them and they feel useless."

O-shen has done concerts in Tahiti and Guam—as exceptional as on the U.S.

mainland and in Papua New Poultry, where he is virtually swarming by fans whenever he arrives at the airport. A consensus he did in Palau thespian the largest gathering of world ever on that island.