Bu Laʻia (born as Shawn Kaui Hill in Waimanalo,

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

) is a

comedian A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing Amusement is the state of experiencing humorous and entertaining events or situations while the person or a ...

known for his use of

Hawaiian pidgin Hawaiian Pidgin (alternately, Hawaiʻi Creole English or HCE, known locally as Pidgin) is an English-based creole language spoken in Hawaiʻi. An estimated 600,000 residents of Hawaii speak Hawaiian Pidgin natively and 400,000 speak it as a seco ...

and for wearing a large "afro style" wig and blacking out one of his front teeth while performing. He starred in a cable television show in the early 1990s and released two comic musical albums entitled ''False Crack???'' And ''Hawaii's Most Wanted.'' He also attained fame—or notoriety—when he ran for governor of Hawaiʻi in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

(when he was too young to legally do so) and again as a member of the Natural Law Party in

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

. He also attracted attention when he was arrested for riding a skateboard at Honolulu International Airport. Bu is pidgin for "Bull". The name "Bu Laʻia" is a

homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...

of "Bull Liar", a phrase meaning "an outrageous liar". His name is reminiscent of the character created by Hawaiian comedian Kent Bowman, “ K.K. Kaumanua” (K.K. Cow–Manure) famous for his "Pidgin English Children's Stories," although Bowman's character uses the pidgin English of an earlier generation.

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