Sam Mangakahia earned a degree in Graphic Design from BYU–Hawaii in 2021. Today, he and his wife, Chalei, are the founders of Shaka Tribe, a cultural art brand, alongside his personal art brand, Hamiora Art, both inspired by his Māori heritage. Mangakahia’s work lights up stages, sells worldwide, and counts Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson among his collaborators. His journey is guided by culture, craft, and the power of knowing who you are.
Made in Many Places
Mangakahia was born in Brisbane, Australia. His father's side of the family is from New Zealand, and his mother is from East Africa; the two sides met after moving to Australia, where Mangakahia and his siblings were born.
Before coming to Brigham Young University–Hawaii, Mangakahia served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Busan, Korea. After returning home, he attended a small college in Nebraska on a basketball scholarship.
"As well as basketball, I was committed to creating stuff all the time," Mangakahia said. "I was always designing, carving. I was carving ukuleles in the dorm, and people got sick of the high-pitched noise of my drill."
Mangakahia says his cousins' experiences at BYU–Hawaii, along with the promise of a work scholarship to perform at the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC), which would cover tuition, rent, and board, eventually brought him to Laie at age 23. He graduated in 2021 with a major in Graphic Design, a minor in Painting, and a certificate in Entrepreneurship.
Carving Out His Place
"BYUH was incredible," Mangakahia said. "Really, what you put in is what you get out."
His first job as a student was performing at the Māori Village of the PCC. Although he had grown up connected to his culture in some ways, he was not always familiar with it firsthand.
"Being there, I was able to learn about my ancestry, perform, and get out of my comfort zone,” he said. "That was a huge part of discovering my purpose and things that I was interested in, and integrating my desires of creativity with culture."
That experience crossed directly into his graphic design classes, as well as one of his favorite classes, painting, taught by professor Jeff Merrill.
"Learning from him was such an opportunity to understand principles of design, color, elements of design, and just seeing a master like him do his thing in class," Mangakahia said. "I was just in awe every single class how he did it."
He often stayed after class to talk through ideas with Merrill, conversations that influenced how he thinks about design to this day.
A major part of his BYUH experience was competing in Great Ideas and Empower Your Dreams, campus entrepreneurship competitions he entered nearly every semester. He started with his ukulele carvings and custom artwork, later branched into rings, then returned to ukuleles with an expanded product line. The road was not smooth.
"The first time I did it, I lost. I didn't get through," he said. "The second time I got through, but then I presented, and I didn't even place. That happened two times in a row. That was pretty defeating."
Refusing to quit, Mangakahia eventually won two of the next three competitions. By his fifth attempt, the idea had developed into something new entirely.
"It was an incredible experience," he said.
Mangakahia met his future wife, Chalei, while working and performing at the PCC. Her family came to watch a show; they connected, and the friendship grew until she enrolled at BYU–Hawaii herself. During their time as students together, Sam and Chalei started Shaka Tribe, launching in the middle of COVID, an unusual time to start a business with so much of the world shut down.
"That's been the best thing that has happened," Mangakahia said. "From the educational standpoint and in our relationship, it helped us to see how we overcome challenges together."
From Great Ideas to Greater Risks
After graduation, Mangakahia says, things got more serious. He and Chalei had $10,000 saved, and they put all of it into their product.
"When you do that, you only have a few options, and that's up — that's to sell the product," he said.
They launched Shaka Tribe and found early traction both online and through wholesale, with wholesale performing especially well as Mangakahia made the rounds to different stores across the island, making cold connections and pitching to shop owners directly.
Mangakahia credits BYU–Hawaii with teaching him what he now considers the most essential skill behind that growth: the ability to present ideas.
"At every single moment in our life, we're always presenting ideas, whether that's in relationships, in a job, in church, anything we do," he said. "I started to notice people who were successful communicate what they wanted to do and how they wanted to make that impact."
His advice to students hoping to start their own business follows a framework he learned from a mentor: discover, develop, deploy.
"First is to discover what you like," he said. "If you discover what you like, the next step, which is developing what you like, comes so much more easily. You have so much more energy to do it, and you genuinely want to do it. You're not forced into this."
He describes the shift plainly: instead of waking up feeling obligated, you wake up unable to wait to get started. College, he says, is a great place to discover that passion, but it takes intention.
"Don't do it in a way that's passive,” he said. “Be very intentional, and I would say aggressive, because your future depends on it, without delay."
Getting to the Root of It
Much of the inspiration behind Shaka Tribe traces back to Mangakahia's own cultural background. Growing up Māori in Australia, he felt a constant pull to connect with a heritage he was not raised directly alongside, a feeling he believes resonates with many people who were not born on their ancestral lands.
"We all relate to that desire to understand our roots and know our purpose and know our ancestry, to be proud of that," he said.
He wanted to build something accessible that could help start that conversation for people — something that represents who they are while also inviting those unfamiliar with Polynesian culture to reflect on their own values.
Rocking the Dream Board
In 2024, Sam and Chalei placed a picture of a diamond on their dream board, which represented their wish to work with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson someday. Two weeks before the end of the year, Mangakahia got a text from Johnson's assistant on behalf of Team Rock, asking whether he would be open to creating a custom ukulele for Johnson's mother.
"Holy smokes," Mangakahia remembers thinking. "There's no way starting the ukulele stuff that I did when I was 11 years old, all the way till now, has come full circle with The Rock reaching out. Like, that's crazy."
That single commissioned piece has since grown into an ongoing relationship, with more collaborations Mangakahia hopes to pursue as time allows.
The Place That Made Him, Made by Him
Sam and Chalei have also grown close with BYU–Hawaii's president and his family, a relationship that has led to several collaborations, including one Mangakahia calls a dream: helping design the university's new campus. When the president first called to ask him to be involved, Mangakahia says he started sketching ideas while they were still on the phone. The plans that followed include large-scale concrete carvings and interior designs, among them a piece that tells the story of performance at the PCC.
"I just want to thank President Kauwe for extending that to us and trusting us with sharing the story of the land, the mission of the school, and really what we're all here doing moving forward and our purposes moving forward," he said.
"It's not an easy ride, especially when you actively try and put yourself in growing opportunities, but it's such a rewarding journey."
For Mangakahia, this journey carried him from a dorm-room ukulele carving to a thriving cultural brand, a friendship with one of the world's most recognizable entertainers, and now a hand in creating the campus's physical legacy that changed his life
