A father’s pride: How the Tatofi legacy is healing the Pacific

They say that in the Pacific, music isn’t just heard, it’s inherited.

When Tivaini “Tiva” Tatofi, an original member of the legendary Hawaiian band Kapena, listened to his son Josh’s new Nashville recordings, he heard more than a Grammy-nominated superstar.

Among the 25 tracks were two songs Tiva had loved since his high school days - songs he had never once spoken about to Josh.

“It’s something from the mother’s womb, maybe,” Tiva, whose Tongan roots are from Vava’u, Niua, and Vaini, says on Pacific Days.

For Tiva, that truth has come full circle through Josh, now one of the Pacific’s most recognised voices.

But this wasn’t just a story of shared taste in music. When Josh called home from the University of Colorado saying he wanted to quit his studies for music, Tiva set a condition.

“I go, ‘If you commit yourself to it, you have to make it a career’ and I told him that I’ll support him 120 per cent,” Tiva said.

That support is now visible far beyond the family home. Last weekend in Auckland, fans got a glimpse of that living legacy when Josh brought his father on stage during his Looking For Love tour.

Together they performed Kapena's Masese - a reggae party track originally by Fijian artist Sakiusa Bulicokocoko that celebrates yaqona (kava) and tavako (tobacco). And the crowd response was instant.

Watch Tivaini Tatofi's full interview below.

On stage, the striking contrast was clear: Tiva still the bold, high-energy performer who built Kapena’s name while Josh carries a smoother, softer style that has earned him the title “Luther Vandross of the Pacific”,

But off stage, the bond runs deeper than performance. Travelling with his wife as part of Josh’s tour, Tiva says fame hasn’t changed his son.

“In America, we call him a ‘ham’,” Tiva laughs. “He’ll come home after a long day and ask, ‘Hey Mom, where’s my saimin (noodles)?’ You’ll see him in slippers and shorts. That’s Josh.”

It is this grounding that Tiva believes allows Josh’s music to reach places far beyond entertainment.

He speaks of a son who regularly “pops up” at hospitals to sing for cancer patients, and of mothers who play his songs to calm their babies.

Watch Josh Tatofi's interview on PMN Tonga below.

But the most powerful stories come from families at the hardest moments of their lives.

“Cancer patients’ [families], they’ve said, ‘My mother on her last days, all she asked for is to play Josh’s music and let me listen to it’. That is something very special,” Tiva says.

For the Tatofis, music has become more than performance. It has become comfort, presence, and peace.

As the family heads across the ditch for the Australian leg of the tour, Tiva reflects on the journey that brought them here.

“When you fall, that’s not the end of the story,” he says. “Before you get to the top of the mountain, go through the forest, you must. All your downs will be a beautiful story later on in life."

In the end, the Tatofi legacy has not just been carried forward. It is being shared. And for many across the Pacific, it is being felt where it matters most. Lighting the way for an entire musical culture, one Masese at a time.