Opetaia Foa'i

Opetaia Foa'i is a Samoa-born, New Zealand-based singer and songwriter best known for leading the Polynesian worldbeat group Te Vaka. He also co-wrote the original songs in the Disney animated film Moana. Foa'i was raised in a thatched-roof Tokelauan community in Alamagoto, Samoa until he moved to Auckland, New Zealand with his uncle at the age of nine. The extended family eventually shared a flat there, and Foa'i picked up English on his own at school without any formal help. His Samoan community had been a musical one, and he took note of the tuning differences on guitar b...