Notable singer Melveen Leed wants a public apology from management of Prince Kuhio Plaza for cutting off her impromptu performance at the mall’s craft fair earlier this month during the Merrie Monarch Festival.
Daniel Kea, the Hilo mall’s general manager, on Wednesday acknowledged outcry over his decision to stop Leed’s pop-up karaoke concert on April 14 has snowballed due to media accounts and social media posts.
“We didn’t want it to be a media thing,” Kea said, adding he’d prefer “to reach out to her personally” instead.
“That’s not good enough,” Leed told the Tribune-Herald. “We were humiliated and embarrassed publicly, so they need to apologize publicly and not privately.
“The people are so upset. That was so uncalled for,” she said. “He could’ve been more tactful, you know? Just the way that he did it was so embarrassing and so humiliating. He left me and my dancer, Iwa, there in tears.
“I didn’t want to stay there and argue with him anymore,” Leed continued. “I just did what he said — to stop singing. And so I unplugged everything, and I left.”
Leed — whose presence in the Edith Kanaka‘ole Multi-Purpose Stadium was acknowledged on the house P.A. during Miss Aloha Hula night — played a number of impromptu concerts during Merrie Monarch week, with her karaoke machine as accompaniment.
According to Leed, venues for those pop-ups included at the Merrie Monarch Hawaiian Arts and Crafts Fair, a house concert in Keaukaha, Big Island Candies, Jackie Rey’s Ohana Grill, WSW Steakhouse, Hawaiian Style Cafe, Kuhio Grille, Ken’s House of Pancakes, Seaside Restaurant and Grandma’s Kitchen in Honokaa.
“I wasn’t panhandling; I didn’t ask for a penny,” she said. “Even in the restaurants, I said, ‘I’m not here for a free meal. I’m just here to give back to your island what you have given me for the over 60 years that I’ve been coming here.’”
In a letter to the editor published Sunday in the Tribune-Herald, Pua Tokumoto, founder of Tahiti Fête, castigated Kea, whom she said showed a “lack of aloha and vision for the mall” by cutting short the performance by Leed, 79, and kumu hula Iwalani Walsh Tseu, 73.
Tokumoto said Kea “should have thanked (Leed) instead of cruelly humiliating her in front of so many shoppers in the middle of a song.”
The public outcry over the incident includes state Sen. Kurt Fevella sending a letter Tuesday to Brookfield Properties, the mall’s operators, calling for “the immediate dismissal of Mr. Kea.”
Fevella, a leeward Oahu Republican, mentioned Hawaii’s tradition of impromptu jams called “kanikapila.” He said Kea’s actions “do not reflect the spirit of aloha, respect, or reverence exemplified by the namesake of the building he works in, Prince Kuhio.”
Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana‘ole was the author of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920, and the mall occupies almost 39 acres of land leased from the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
Kea said he instructed the vendor to tell Leed to stop singing because “it was a safety issue.”
“A crowd was already starting to form,” Kea said. “It was Melveen Leed. It was Merrie Monarch week. Everybody’s going to stop, and it was plugging up the hallways. And we didn’t have it planned, so I didn’t have the staffing to control the crowd or make sure there was an egress or walkway, in case something happened and everybody had to get out of the mall.
“It popped up, and we were unprepared for it,” he continued. “If we had planned it, that would’ve been great. I would love to have her sing in our mall. But unfortunately, she was doing impromptus all over Hilo, and I wasn’t able to accommodate her because we had other things happening in the mall where our security had to be. It caused a safety hazard and safety had to be our first concern.
“Despite the fact that I would’ve loved to hear her sing and see kumu Iwalani dance, safety has to be the first concern for us.”
Brookfield also released a statement which said, in part: “Of course, we were honored and grateful to have two legendary performers share their aloha at our Prince Kuhio Plaza, but we also have a responsibility to maintain a safe gathering place for our community. Because of the large crowds that quickly gathered, we recognized a potential safety hazard. We were simply working in the best interest of everyone.
“We will be reaching out to the performers privately to discuss this matter, and apologize to anyone who may have been upset by the misunderstanding that occurred.”
John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.