Oʻahu-based 8RO8 shares inspiration for new single, “On Sight”

Oʻahu-based music artist Myron Armstrong, who goes by the stage name 8RO8, grew up in Mākaha and wrote “On Sight” while missing Hawaiʻi during a work trip to the Mainland. The song was created by 8RO8 and released July 1 in collaboration with 88rising, a record label and music management company with about 7.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

The song captures 8RO8 asking a girl for her phone number, and then bringing her from the “301” area code back home to the “808.”

“I keep getting homesick super quick,” 8RO8 told Aloha State Daily. “I was fantasizing: ʻOh, what if I meet this cool person out here?’ And then she's all like, ʻOh, where are you from?’ And I'm like, ʻHoney girl, I’m from the West Side, where the beaches are cool. I’ll show you to my family over there, and we go beach.’”

To make the music video for “On Sight,” 8RO8 and a few friends pulled off the feat with the aid of “three Red Bulls and one hour,” he said.

8RO8 is just getting started. He published his first music on YouTube about eight years ago. After high school, he decided not to go to college. His grandmother told him “just pay rent and don't do drugs [and] don’t do anything illegal,” he said. So he took a job at McDonald’s and started making music. He tried being a rapper, but that wasn’t a fit, so he leaned into his island roots.

Today, 8RO8 has more than 230,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. In 2024, he was featured in Spotify’s global Asian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month Campaign, which included appearances on billboards in Los Angeles and New York City.

But each song he writes from “Chee Hoo!” (featuring Ka'ikena Scanlan) to “Hele” (featuring P-Lo) is heavily steeped in island life and aloha spirit.  His recent song “Counting on You,” released in February, continues to chart on local radio stations. He has also released songs like “Wana” (featuring J Boog, Franskiiz, and Freddy Leone) and “Wind”(featuring 94Tunez of Rebel Souljahz).

“I get inspired by a lot of stuff,” he said. “I grew up on the radio because we were too poor to buy an iPod touch.”

As a kid, he listened to a lot of 92.3 KSSK, which frequently played Kalapana, Stevie Wonder, Daryl Hall & John Oates. In high school, he learned about rap, including Drake and Tupac.

“There's different definitions of aloha depending on where you grow up,” he said. “They have stuff to do on the West Side. You gotta go to work. You gotta go through traffic. I just want to replicate that with my music, so when they hear it — particularly people from the West Side — they can get: ʻOh, we're being represented properly.’”

He still remembers when he had just a handful of followers on Spotify.

“I gotta say, on the West [Side], we stay humble,” he said. “We stay appreciative. I still remember the days where I checked my monthly [Spotify numbers] and it was like five people, and I was talking to all five people because it was all my friends.”

When he looks at the analytics now, he has seen an uptick in viewers around the world, including in Japan and Taiwan, since “On Sight” was released earlier this month.

“I'm just tripping because I get to be their first exposure to music from Hawaiʻi, especially when it's not traditional Hawaiian — or music with ʻŌlelo [Hawaiʻi] in it — or even ... music talking about ʻwe're on a beach,’ ” he said. “I'm proud and excited that I get to be their entry into our world.”

In January, 8RO8, who is used to smaller venues, performed at his first music festival, the Holo Holo Music Festival, which took place in an arena in Oceanside, California, and featured Common Kings, Josh Tatofi, Spawnbreezie and KʻNova.

It was his first experience with in-ear monitors, which took some getting used to. “I learned that in-ear monitors are super cool and super scary at the same time,” he said.

Since he was performing outside of Hawaiʻi, he didn’t expect anyone to yell “hana hou.”

“Guess what happened?!” he said. “They asked for a hana hou! We looked around, and I went on the mic, ʻOh no hana hou, sorry.’”

But the emcee had already asked the crowd if they wanted more, so 8RO8 performed “Hawaiian Sun” as a dedication to his grandmother, who passed away a little over a year ago.

“After that, I got to meet fans and a lot of the moms who were forced to bring their daughters and their sons were like, ʻThat last song you dedicated, that touched my heart. It was super special,ʻ" 8RO8 said. "Meeting people on the Mainland I never met — and I would never meet because they couldn't make it out to Hawaiʻi — that was also very special. It was an eye-opening and humbling experience.”

He wants his listeners to follow their passion.

“You should really just chase after whatever is real to you,” he said. “We get caught in a lot of the noise, whether it's from your parents or the world, and you really have that inner voice that was super loud when you were younger get quiet, the older you get. ... I'm discovering that everybody has a mission.”

Follow 8RO8 on Spotify, YouTube, Instagram or TikTok. 

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.

Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.