The Tapa Cloth Flea

Though he's best known for the magnificent tikis he carves, surfer, artist and sculptor CC Rider is also a fine ukulele player, too, and now he's applied his amazing artistic aptitudes to customize a unique Tapa Cloth Flea Ukulele!

This incredible Flea has had a layer of exotic "tapa cloth" applied to its top, and then that thin layer was sealed in with a protective coating of polyurethane. What the heck is tapa cloth, you may ask? Why, it's a primitive, hand-made, hand-painted, paper-thin bark cloth made primarily in Tonga and Samoa, of course, and it's actually quite scarce and very highly-prized for its rarity nowadays. You'll find an excellent article all about it right here.

Say, even though it's paper-thin, doesn't all that cloth on the front of the Flea affect the sound, you ask? Well, judge for yourself: the ukulele music you'll hear playing when you visit CC Rider's tiki-carving webpage is him and his wife, painter Anne Rider, playing the surfer anthem "Endless Summer," and we're told that she's playing that very Flea, pictured here. How cool is that?

So, if you'd like to have the legendary CC Rider customize your Flea (or Fluke), too, with some tapa cloth, or tiki art, or whatever else your little heart desires, just contact him through his website, and we're sure he'll be able to make your uke unique!

Update: Reader Will Deuel was so inspired by the Tapa Cloth Flea that he created his own virtual "Kente Cloth Fluke" and sent it in to share with us, saying: "I've been to Ghana, West Africa, with a ukulele, where I got to visit a facility where tribal kente cloth is woven. Taking inspiration from the Tapa Cloth Flea by CC Rider, I would love to see a Kente Cloth Fluke or Flea. I'm satisfied with my ukes, but, if the Fluke company ever came out with one of these, I'd be all over it in a heartbeat!" Just click right here to see a picture of his fantastic custom Fluke creation!