CRAFTING MUSIC ISLAND-STYLE
Riki Adamu used a machete to fashion his first ukulele out of a coconut shell as a 12-year-old boy growing up on a remote atoll in the northern Cook Islands.
Making do with anything he could find on Rakahanga, the resourceful young instrument maker used birchwood sap for glue, cut nails in half with a hacksaw blade to make frets, sanded it down on raw concrete, and strung his ukarere (in Cook Islands Māori) with fishing line.
Four decades on, and the finely crafted instruments made by Riki and
