Koyawa is the son of the village paramount chief who has a unique voice and a strong live performance character. 

Koyawa was introduced by Ben Hakalitz as THE voice he would like us to record for the song, Alie Sike, he composed specially for Small Island Big Song.

We met up with Koyawa at his village, and than we were all taken to a hut in the forest. The hosts greetedus with a mumu (a traditional food in Papua New Guinea using heated stones to stream the wrapped roots veggies), saying that they heard son of the chief and his guests are coming. With one hand busy serving the cooking bananas, Koyawa put on the headphones and started to write the melody and lyrics he was about to record. In 20 minutes time, he and Ben came up with some lyrics and chorus, few minutes later, he grabbed the speaker to put on his shoulder, said 'good to go!'

I love the time when we walked through the forest (and mud), with Koyawa practicing and writing his vocals as we went. Especially when we started to touch the edge of the mangrove forest, we gave each other a hand from pulling our thongs from the mud trying not to fall over on the single trunk bridges. It was fun, as the song is too. 

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Tim even added the recording of Koyawa walking and practicing the singing at the end of the song to remember these moments, so listen out for it!