Welcome to Hawaii Together on the ThinkTech Hawaii Broadcasting Network. I'm Joe Kent, Executive Vice President for the Grasshirt Institute of Hawaii, filling in for Keilii Akina, he's the President of the Grasshirt Institute of Hawaii. And today we're talking about sharing, and we're talking about sharing homes. What if you wanted to share your home with a visitor, and that guest wanted to pay you in return? Well, in Hawaii, and at least in Honolulu, they're the latest county council to try to make that illegal. And today we're going to talk about all of the ideas to make this illegal, and whether that's a good idea or a bad idea, and how that will affect our economy. Today we're talking with Mary Levois. Welcome to the show, Mary. Thank you. Thank you. And we're talking a little bit about a few bills. Now, Bill 85 would basically ban short-term vacation rentals where the owner doesn't live in the home. And Bill 89 would only allow a very limited amount, about 1,700 bed and breakfast. So these are bills to basically crack down on the home-sharing industry. Is that how you see it? It's basically to close down the entire industry for any of the locals to participate in. It's economic suicide is what I call it. Bill 85 is very restrictive in a sense that nobody can room share, whole home rent. And if you do, there's enormous fines connected to it. So they are trying to close down a platform and an opportunity for local residents to participate in making a little bit of extra money. And Bill 89, what would that do? Bill 89 also is very restrictive. It cracks down on closing all whole home sharing whatsoever and will allow a very small number of room sharing. Currently, there's probably 8,000 whole home room sharing that's going on. There's about 352,000 homes in the Honolulu market and they want to possibly only allow a half a percent, which would mean most people would not be able to room share or whole home rent. It's interesting how some of the language involved in the creation of this policy is some people say, oh, this will allow, you know, this is a path towards legalization or a path towards permitting and a path towards letting home sharing happen in the state. But actually, if it's only 1,750 homes that are allowed to do this, some people say that's not really allowing it. That's more like banning it. Yeah. They've basically come up with language in the bill to protect just the hotel industry and we all know where that money goes and they pay the workers and the rest of the money leaves the island. Well, how much money are we talking about, especially when it comes to vacation rentals, Airbnb's and all of that? How much money does that generate for the economy in Hawaii? Do you know that? Well, currently, they say that it's a $1.2 billion industry annually and everybody knows somebody that's either room sharing or vacation renting their house, either they go on vacation or they're spending time away visiting their children going to college or if they're bi-coastal, everybody knows somebody that's already doing it and what we were trying to do is get the city council to embrace it in a responsible manner.  So it's an effective ban and there might be some special interest, well, there's a lot of interest here. There's actually special interest for medium density apartment only, so a few selective buildings and the hotel industry, that's it. They don't want anybody else in their business. And other parts of these bills are that we have these huge fines. Sometimes it's $1,000 a day, sometimes $5,000, sometimes $25,000 and sometimes $50,000 per day for doing the wrong thing, maybe advertising the wrong way or something when it comes to this. They are trying to scare all the local people to not advertise on any hosting platforms and that they are not allowed to collect any income or room sharing or whole rentals. So when it comes to these huge fines, and there's a lot of components we can talk about this with, that's what the huge fines, is that constitutional to have these huge fines? It's not constitutional to charge fines that are way out of line with the violation. And so there was so much opposition to just the fines alone that the city council did come down from $25,000, $50,000, $100,000, they reduced it down to, I think, $5,000, $10,000 and $25,000. Sure, sure. They adjusted fines. But it's still per day. It's crazy. So if it racks up, then you might have to pay still a lot of money. It's horrible. It's horrible. And also another component of these bills, there's a lot to talk about here, but one of the last component with the bills, as far as I can see it, is the neighbor against neighbor aspect, which is that if, let's say I am renting my home as a vacation rental, my neighbor can take me to court, and if he wins, he or she wins, then I have to pay for his attorney fees and all of that. There was so much opposition to pity neighbors against neighbors that they also did take that out of the bill. That's just not a nice neighborly thing to do. A lot of jurisdictions and other cities are embracing home sharing and room sharing and being neighborly that they actually have brochures that they give out the entire city and reminding people of being mindful of your neighbors and buy at hours and stuff like that. What about people who say, oh, well, Airbnb, my neighbor does Airbnb and maybe they're loud at odd times of the night or there's parking problems or I don't know, garbage problems or anything. Neighbors and neighborhoods have legitimate complaints and should be regulated. We are looking for fair regulation because nobody likes a bad neighbor. I don't want a bad neighbor. So we're trying to get them to, instead of throw the whole industry out with all these huge fines and everything, but to embrace some of the industry and actually regulate the areas that need regulation. For instance, if you're a whole home rental, they can say something like you have to have parking on the property. That's it. If you break the noise ordinance, which is quite hours from 10 o'clock to 8 o'clock in the morning, that neighbor has an opportunity to call the police just like an alarm. Right. So you're basically saying that if there are issues when it comes to noise, if there's issues when it comes to parking, let's deal with that issue separately from the whole banning it all together. Give them a noise fine, let's say it's $500. And if there's a constant noise problem, because you're always going to have a few bad neighbors. Sure. They could be long-term tenants and be bad neighbors. Sure. So even without a vacation around the industry, you still might have a bad neighbor. If somebody is found to be that inconsiderate, bad neighbor, you give them a fine, $500 for the first time, $1,000 for the second time, $1,500 for the third time. And maybe after that, if they're consistently a bad neighbor, maybe not give them a permit. What about people who say that there's just too many vacation rentals and they're coming up the whole affordable renting market? So maybe, yeah. There's a little truth to that in a sense that there might be taking some of the housing stock, but not very much. When I say that, most of the people that are home-sharing aren't going to rent out their whole home anyway. Okay. A lot of the people that are home-sharing are seniors that are trying to pay their medical. They are trying to have a little extra money to pay their bills. Maybe the kids are away at college and they want to have that room open for when their child comes home, the room's open, or when family's coming to vacation, it's open. And when family's not here, they've rented out. There was a lot of testimony to seniors that loved being hosts, loved to spread the Loha spirit, patronized all the restaurants and shops in the neighborhood, and are very good responsible neighbors. So I don't think you should penalize everybody. But there still are some people who are using spaces that would otherwise be used for rent. And in that sense, you could say that the vacation rentals are putting a pressure on rent prices, which I don't know if they're being inflated because of that. They haven't really put a pressure on the rent.  You can still get a studio or one better for $1,000 a month. So I mean, that really hasn't had an effect on it. If you look on Craigslist right now, you'll see there's at least 3,000 vacant long-term rentals. If you look on the MLS right now, there's another 1,000 vacant rentals. What should policymakers do then if they're concerned about this trying to provide more units and more spaces for rent? Should they ban the whole vacation rental industry, which would maybe create a bunch of new rentals? Or what should they do? No, that won't create a bunch of new rentals because the people that still room share are still going to be there. They don't necessarily want to share that room full-time. Well, what about other things? The economic impact, and we talked a little bit about that, but I mean, getting in the weeds here, vacation rentals, they contribute to our economy.  And if we cut off the market here, then presumably all that economic activity would leave. Well, look at North Shore. Can you imagine what's going to happen to the North Shore?  They don't have the opportunity to drive in the Waikiki and work a job in town. They're just going to create more traffic. They need to work out where they live. And these jobs provide an opportunity for those people to have a better quality of life. They talk about how they fix up their homes. They can pay their mortgage. They can pay their rent. They're even putting some of the homeless people to work cleaning the yards and doing all kinds of stuff. So it's helping some of the economy. But there are people on the North Shore, and I would be remiss if I didn't say that there are some people on the North Shore who don't like vacation rentals and who want it, you know, just, you know, Hawaii as if we had no vacation rentals. And people say there's too many tourists here and all of that. So how would you respond to that? Well, we are a destination location. We have very little other industries other than small business, the military and tourism. So we need to embrace this travel trend because these visitors will just clearly go elsewhere. I mean, in the United States, it is a $36 billion industry in growing. And this is the way the Millenniums want to travel. They want options in all accommodations. And if we don't offer the accommodations, they'll just clearly go elsewhere. So we either lose the money and destroy the opportunity for the revenue stream, which the revenue streams will afford us the opportunity to pay for that noose around our neck rail. It fixes our streets, our infrastructure, our sewers, our parks, our beaches, all the erosion that's going on around the island, but we need that money. And if we don't collect it from the tourists that are happily willing to pay it and locals that are making money, that are willing to share that money, if we don't take it from them, the honest truth is they're going to have to raise everyone's property taxes substantially. And we're going to talk about taxes as related to vacation rentals when we come back. We're here with Mary Levois. I'm Joe Kent from the Gratiot Institute of Hawaii. We'll see you when we come back. Aloha, I'm Wendy Lo, and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at two o'clock live from Think Tech Hawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body, and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about, whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means, let's take healthy back. Aloha. Aloha, I'm Gwen Harris, the host here at Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of the supporters to keep ongoing. We'd be grateful if you'd go to ThinkTechHawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Thanks so much. Welcome back to Hawaii Together on the ThinkTech Hawaii Broadcasting Network. And I just wanted to say thank you to ThinkTech for providing us this platform to, and many other people, the platform to speak about important issues. And the important issue we're talking about today is vacation rentals, home sharing. Should it be banned or not? And how much does it contribute to our economy? We're talking with Mary Levois and we ended by talking a bit about the taxes. So obviously, if vacation rentals, home sharing are contributing a lot to the economy, then presumably they must be paying a lot of taxes as well. Is that right? Or how does that work? I would say that some people are and some people aren't. A lot of the people that are renting out their guest cottage or their back room or their whole home when they're gone would like the ability to pay their fair share taxes. Some of them are already paying. Most of the whole home rentals that are managed by companies, brokerage companies, are already paying GENTA tax. They've been paying that for a while. They also pay the city a much higher tax rate. They pay residential A, which used to be $4 for tier one, and anything over a million dollars they were paying $9. That's kind of a different tax category, but basically it's for wealthier, non-ret, where they don't live in that property. Believe it or not, a lot of local people are paying that double taxation, triple taxation, whatever you want to call it. And the reason they're paying it is because instead of investing their money in the stock market, there was many, many local people that invested in a second property or they decided to hold on to a property that their family left them, belong to their mom, their dad, they're trying to keep it in the family. If that is the case, they are currently paying this residential A double, triple taxation. And that has already chased a lot of locals out of the market. When they introduced residential A, I sold off a lot of property for local people and they were just really forced to sell. When the taxes went up on that residential A category that we talked about, the million dollar or so homes are higher, then those houses, a lot of people wanted to sell those houses. Yes, lots of locals where they came out of the woodwork and said, we have to sell. If they were paying $3.50 per thousand, let's take $10,000, let's say they were paying $10,000 a year for property taxes. Overnight, Reze raised it to $30,000 or greater because they were fluctuating with the values at that point too. In Hawaii, some people are cash poor but property rich and those people couldn't pay the tax. Is that what you're saying? A lot of elderly people that were charging rent to tenants said, I can't raise the rent three times. My people aren't going to pay this kind of rent. We're already limited on what we can charge our tenants. We've got taxes on these homes, which is kind of a subset of the vacation rental industry as well because some of these homes are used for home sharing. People are supposed to be paying those taxes, the G-E-T, the T-E-T-A-T, but not everyone's paying. In the state, they passed a bill at the legislature, SB 1292, which would basically have what the vacation rental company, like Airbnb for example, hand over the bag of money to the state and that would be about $52 million that the state would get. The vacation rental operator would pay and collect the taxes basically. Correct. What's the problem? Well, we're waiting to find out whether the governor will sign that on June 24th. It passed by one vote. Very rare, by the way, to happen in Hawaii to pass by one vote. Yes. Okay. Now, Governor Igay did veto that bill back in 2016 because it was introduced before. A similar bill back in 2000, yeah, okay. And he vetoed it, so it didn't go through. I think at this point, I think the state and the city realize we need the money. Why are we not taking the money? We have so many initiatives and financial responsibilities that we are faced with that the only responsible thing for them to do is to take the money and people are willing to pay. So, if they embrace and he approves and signs that bill, he will be able to collect the G-E-T. It says here $52 million, at least in the most recent. They're estimating between the $52 million and $65 million annually. He'll be able to collect it from all the other islands and not Oahu. But then the problem though, yeah, if Oahu bans it, then that $52 million or whatever is going to go down. And so it's interesting that lawmakers in their zeal to get the tax money also are overzealous to ban it, in which case they would lose out on the tax money. So how does this make sense? Okay, so there's two sides to this story. So the states collecting the G-E and the T-A-T tax, okay. Effectively almost 5% on G-E and 14% on T-A-T, okay. So they're collecting a good bulk of money, okay. The city feels short change in a way and they're like, well, we're not getting any of that money. But what they fail to recognize is by registering all the BNBs with a registration fee for a permit by registering all the TVUs, let's just say they register 7,500 BNBs and 2,500 TVUs, they're going to collect $11 million annually just right there. Just from registrations. Yeah. They could charge $1,000 for BNBs. They could charge $2,000. Oh, like an annual registration, you say, I see, okay. And then in addition to that, they're failing to recognize all of those people are paying a little higher rate of tax, property tax. So if they drop, if you're renting anything short term, you automatically fall into resume. Right. Okay. So homes that are under a million dollars, which are a good portion of the homes that people share their room, they need that money. Sure. So they fall into that $4.50 range. Right. Because they're under a million dollars. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Then whole home rentals, which make more for renting a whole home, would fall into the $10.50 category. Axis. Right. Okay. So they're collecting all of that too. So everybody gets their fair share. Right. The homeowner makes a little bit of money to offset the high cost of home ownership in Honglulu. And the renter who is paying these high rents has a little opportunity to make a little bit more if they're not fully utilizing, there's a lot of times. People say the problem with the state bill, though, to collect the taxes is that it doesn't give over the private information of where the homeowner lives and what kind of Airbnb they're renting and it doesn't sort over that information. It doesn't. So if you have the TVU or the BNB, you put their registration number on their ad. Sure. Okay. But the registration on their advertising that they are registered here is my registration number and the platform is collecting the tax. That's all they need to know. Sure. You know, there's such a thing as property rights and privacy and you know. Are people putting those numbers on the ads or is that a big problem right now? No, because the state hasn't embraced it and nor has the city. People are trying to get them to say, you haven't issued a permit since 1989. For God's sake. Issue some permits. So there's kind of a culture of fear then around people who are in the shared home sharing industry that, okay, you want us to, you know, put our signature on the line, but if I do that, then what? Are you going to attack me for it or what?  They're illegal. They're all illegal and all that. Well, I make everybody feel like criminals. You know, and these are property owners and people that are just trying to get by. Well, at the end of the day though, what does this mean for the average person who's struggling to make it in Hawaii? It means that the kids will have to forgo the extra piano lessons, the extra camping trip, the extra vacation, maybe forgoing private education. I mean, we're all working so hard to give our kids a better life. The city council has put into place to make our lives a better place to live. They're supposed to take care of our parks, our streets, our sewers, our trash. Make Hawaii a better quality of life for us. With these bills, they're harming the economy, they're killing businesses, killing jobs.  And you know, how about all these homeless people that are roaming the neighborhoods? They're ruining the neighborhoods. Now, what about going back to the economy, and you mentioned there's probably a $1.2 billion impact that the home-shared market is having, if they basically ban the home-sharing industry, then what will that do to our economy? I mean, how is the tourism market going right now, and what would happen? Okay, I think a couple of things are going to probably happen. There's going to be a lot of people that would just go underground. Oh, it would be a black market. Everybody knows somebody in Hawaii, and they're going to be couch-surfing. There might be some new app or something. My family, friend wants a rent, blah, blah, blah, blah. So they'll be all of that, okay? So the state and the city stand to lose all of that, because people invite people to come and stay at their house all the time. What are you going to stop them from giving you money? They're going to give the people money. And the problem with the black market is that black markets are more dangerous, normally. I mean, it's hard to trust people in a black market, because there's less of a rating system, and let's say it's legal and everyone can see it, you've got a five-star rating system. So, you know, the host and the guest are kind of rating each other and trying to verify their experience. Where if it's a black market, that's all secret, and you lose that sort of, I guess, transparency. You also just turn away a lot of visitors. Here we are spending, the state's spending billions of dollars on attracting people to come to our state. Now we're trying to tell them you're not welcome. Sure, and Southwest just came here. And if we cut off the vacation rental industry, then maybe there'd be less demand from those people looking for a deal on flights, too. So, well, I'm sure we could talk a lot more about this issue, and these bills and policies will continue for a little while, at least. But we'll see what happens. Thanks so much, Mary, for joining us on the show. We really appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you. And my name is Joe Kent. And you've been watching Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcasting Network. Thanks for watching.


Fannie J. Coppin, born a slave in 1837 in Washington, D.C., died January 21, 1913 in Philadelphia, a graduate of Oberlin College, educator and missionary, whose innovations as first Black woman head principal of the Institute for Color Youth in Philadelphia and in the country period. In 1889, after a 10-year campaign, she realized her hope to introduce an industrial training department that offered instruction in 10 trades prior to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University. She sailed for Cape Town, South Africa. She and her husband founded the Bethel Institute in Cape Town and worked there for women tirelessly for 10 years. She returned to Philadelphia, where she spent the remaining of her life. In 1926, the high school and training facility in Baltimore was renamed Fannie Coppin Normal School now Coppin State College.


I'm Miriam Hi DJ, kaza wa you? I'm very well, thank you It's good to meet you finally It's good finally to meet you Thank you so I'm so struck Who is so struck between me and you? No I can't believe it No Thank you for having me and for inviting me We are honoured to have you and I must say you are a whole whole package is DJ is music is model Is it? Is it model? Well, lasimu tukai pwa tukia Tukai pwa tukia ondani a Christ, no? Unaka na pwa asana What's your DJ case? DJ Kez is gospel DJ is a gospel artist is a DJ at the MC and also motivational speaker among other things that I do but when it comes to relation music and philanthropy that's exactly what I do that's how I'm known I remember meeting DJ Kez very first time not physically nili kutana nawe pali Facebook during covid DJ alko nenda live mixes pali kidogo iwi well those were awesome times thank you those were really awesome times kushu nga jia gatu DJ kez sato ita fika sangafi wichunin but that was amazing why did you stop? I didn't stop, I still do it it's just not an activity as I used to do it because now everything came back sasa kazi piyazi mikuja so now we just do it every Friday evening but before we used to go live a lot but DJ is very much still a part of me still a part of what I do nige nimeba riki watu kuweza kushia mziki zenye mi na eza imba na zenye watu wengine wana imba, kama DJ na bisae DJ kuna mziki kuna? when did you start singing? as a baby to be honest because come on I must deal as Moimbe role number one that is a must let's see what you have to say Moimbe aji, direkli wunenda klasu so to kwa wadogo izuni talents zunye watu na na gruyo atu kwa wadogo but I didn't really think much into it until I got when I now became older and I came in kota who DJing and I loved it and then I joined a choir Sanim music group I used to say in choirs, are we? so I sang in Sanim music choir and they are the ones who inspired me and pushed me to do soul music and as I told you that first that song that we sang Kimbiliu was the first song that I dropped in 2021 October so it's been 2 years of soul music as an artist but to liyanzatu kwa wadogo kabisa na eko? na ni misto kima ilkuna mziki I eat and I drink music I am a DJ, I am a choir member and at the same time a solo artist na am suwa Goda kini funguli anjengi na ya kuyamziki badotu nmitai fin kwa wadogo na kwa wadogo na kwa wadogo? I say amen kwa wadogo na imba kwa wadogo na DJ kwa wadogo na kukriyeti music kwa wadogo na kwa wadogo I write as well so all the music that I have sung are my own compositions yeah so you are old you say she is an old everything when it comes to music when it comes to music she is all that ala hu you said Kimbiliu was the first song na india msalaba was the second one because it has a different sound which sound is this tiii if you listen to all my songs I try to because I don't want to be known for a specific genre I want to speak to people of all ages of all kinds of okanda kwa pejango utafti nmboiote nii neza kusprecia uta pata variety nii akunam tu tako saki tu nii itam speak here so that's why you sing with a choir as well kwa wali mbawa schizimizi npata palikwa DJ ukiru diukuna pachanatete which is very different from na india msalaba which is a hymn so try to mix it up so that we make sure watwa mungu ako sikiti kuskiza yakuwa and I know before that before that there is a journey and that journey actually I really like it because if there is someone that is watching us they are really inspired if there is someone who grew up in a church i did kwa kwa kwa yama jwe kweimba kila sato mjwe kweimba but along the way in kampo things took a different time things changed I should say she's a political scientist yes I am I have a degree in political science that I have never practiced it's unfortunate he'll take you to a community Let's hold on a little bit. Let me go first to do this music that he's calling me. But yeah, when I want to, having grown up in a Christian church, it is expected of you 100% that utakwam into a church. Yeah, like when I say mumtutu wlea wlea wlea wlea wlea kwa wio. But maen niliyenda nikakwa kwa kama jona kido go somewhere along the way. Uka fanya kijona. Yes, nikakwa nya kijona. I got pregnant at 17 years old just before I joined campus actually. And the circumstances in which I got pregnant, zilini kasi risha. But I didn't get mad at myself. I got mad at God for allowing it to happen to me that it did. And in the process of getting mad at God, I decided I was done being a Christian. And minimen. Is there rap? Yes. Yes, so I started a completely different life in campus. I used to go to the clubs and take photos there or just go party. And that's why I came in contact with DJing the very first time. So I had a friend who was a DJ there. And I told him, me one day I'd love to learn how to DJ. So I went to school. When I finished campus, I went for a three month course. But instead of doing gospel DJing as a Christian in me as opposed to I went into secular DJing. So I was a huge, I was a secular DJ in Kenya for four years. Actually almost five years because COVID is the season when I was born. Yeah, during COVID season is when I was born. But during those five years I never stepped foot in church. Actually it could be more because my daughter now turned eight. Yeah. Cute little baby. Beautiful little baby. My biggest blessing. You see, sometimes ina naisemangakwa testimony.  When you are in the season of the test, you are like, why is this happening to me?  He was teaching me something or he was building me for something. Because now when I look at my daughter I think, thank you Jesus because that little girl is the one that made, is the one that has inspired me to be the person that I am today. Yeah. True. Kamasee, clearly you didn't even be sitting here with us telling us. Nikiya. And this is an encouragement. I know this is an encouragement to someone out there who wants to give up. Yeah. I don't, don't, don't. The biggest test. Yes. It can give, it can turn out to be the best lesson ever in this life. It can push you to your destiny. Yes. It can push you to your destiny guys. Mind it. Mind it. Yeah, you see. And now music. Yes. Ume fanya ko labo umuna. Weza. Yes. Jipende. Yes. But my favorite. Yeah. Gramarecho. Hey. When you show me for my church. My grandmother. Uhu yo. Uhu yo tu ya ni mi mi roya angu tu ya na. Ni kama omegawa between my daughter and my grandma. My grandma is, as I said, tumerizo kwa church in any Christian. So ye endo the matriak behind the whole family. Ye endo. Me ni Liza Liwa in the Seventy Day Adventist church. Katisti of her because she was already in the SDH church. And she has taught me first thing, kwa imba. Io nda kitu elikotu bukotu nafanya. Kila shiku bioni. Tuna kaivi. Yeah. Round of the fire. And we would sing before we pray and go sleep. Yeah. So recently I did a collab with her. Yeah. And I have another one coming because she doesn't want to stop. She also do as many as possible. And she is 85. Wow. Yes. Looking young and energetic. Aki imba pata wa zidwa. Always better join me. Yeah. Umona. Umona kibana ho. Okay. Adi tikok challenge. Hey. Jk. Yeah. Anything that she sees me do. Aki oni transformation ne go dame ni lete amen fanya kwa life yungu. Kwa zame kwa na mimi through the whole process. Ina main caraging gi sana kuni kuni support. So aki onani kwa pona fanya ho di. Okay. I want to do it. Teach me. I also want to do it. Yeah. Oni e kefal e tiktok. Oni e kefal e tiktok. Kama uko nimem fanya me imba challenge yungu aso yungu e ho di. Na aja ijua. Badot na fight sa ikwa hao. Badot we are still fighting because of the lyrics. Yeah. Uko lepo lepo. No move lepo. And lyrics news na potea ki dobu. Like we move. Ah, we dance up here. Anazi shikakabisa. So my biggest support system as well. Ako pali anything I do. My grandma is always behind me. She's like you go servant of God. Woman of God. Yeah. Yeah. Now tell us about this song. Howdy. It's your latest one. It's my latest one. As you in life. Generally. Atawe wa ata mimi. Kilam to everyone. Even the people who are watching online. We go knocking on doors trying to find the things that we think we deserve in life. And sometimes actually most times we go knocking on the wrong doors or the doors that are not meant for us. Because we are trying to find answers and when I'm trying to find a job I go knock on the door of my connections. Only my connections do not work out and I don't get a job. Or for example I'm trying to look for my purpose and my destiny in life. And I go knocking on the world's door. I'm like is it here? Is it in Sekila? Mi nili yanda uko? Is it here in Sekila? Or is it somewhere else? In the process I forget that Matthew 777 says ask and you shall be answered. Seek and you shall find and knock and the door will be opened for you. So it is very simple for us that when we go and we knock on Christ's door. With all our questions, all our troubles, whatever it is we're going through. So the answer we will receive. The door will be opened. What we are seeking we shall find. So that is what Hody is all about. I've been knocking on the right doors beginning now. Now go knock on the right doors. Go knock on the door. Uzuri Agoda mi sema. Ukimfunguliam lango. Kwa zi e piyan ono kwa doi ako. Ukimfunguliam lango anakam nawewe anakain nawewe. Nafi ya kudain na God ni kituivi iwi kwebi. It's a big thing. Say ma God is such a gentleman. It cannot force himself on you. You've got to open the door. You have to open the door for him. It's the enemy that forces himself on you.  Unless you invite him, he cannot come in.  I should say that every now and then, do you have new projects coming up? Oh yes, I have new projects that I'm hoping to be releasing inshala every month or every one and a half months. Because I want to bless these beautiful people as much as I can. And we are working on an album and we will be releasing towards the end of the year. And we will welcome you guys to come and join us to celebrate this album launch. My first album. Kwa front seat. Reserved. Reserved. Looking forward to that. Keep us busy. Occupied. Listening to one is a case song after the other. After the other. But more grace to you. God continue increasing you. And thank you so much for making time. Yes. For having me. But before we go to Masalamu, we will go to Masalamu. We will go to music platforms. All music platforms are DJ KEWZ. So YouTube, Boom Place, Spotify, iTunes, Deezer. Uko kuote. Everywhere you can think about my music is there. DJ KEWZ. And you can find me on all social media platforms. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Tiktok. What did you say? Tiktok. Snapchat. Offisi ku? Mi sina ofisi ku ma lupo pote sa Nipata. E ofisi ku niya president pake ake. Ya. Usa Nipata uko kuote. DJ KEWZ. Santisana. Grama Rachel. I'm sure she's watching right now. Hai, Gogo. Hi to my beautiful family. And my fans. Wherever it is they're watching from. Atawale omejo into kwa ma fans leo. Nawa penda sana na mungo zidi kwa bariki. Tu zidi pamoja tukutana. One day in heaven. Santisana. So DJ KEWZ, thank you for coming. You're going to bless us with hodi. Yes. Very first time here on J.C. Kwa bariki weni.