As frontman of Nahko and Medicine for the People, Nahko has shared a lot of himself with listeners since the band formed in 2008. His time leaving his home in Oregon to travel the country, the experience of meeting his birth mother, all led to the creation of the world music collective, which released “Hoka” last year. As open as he’s been on the band’s three albums, which lyrically revolve mostly around all things socially and spiritually conscious, Nahko has kept his pre-Medicine life mostly tucked away. But with a break in the band’s schedule, Nahko decided to revisit that time, officially recording songs that have bounced around YouTube for years, piecing them together to tell the story of his pre-Medicine life, a time when he was known not as Nahko, but as David Bell. The story, told on Nahko’s debut solo album, “My Name Is Bear,” brings Nahko and Medicine for the People to the Knitting Factory on Sunday. Born Joel Miguel Nahkohe-ese Parayno, Nahko was named David Joel Nahkohe-ese Bell after he was adopted. Nahko, of Puerto Rican, Filipino, Mohawk and Apache descent, grew up in a white household in Oregon. In his late teens and early 20s, he wrote music as he traveled the country. When he arrived in Hawaii, a friend suggested he go by Nahko, which means “bear.” “I reclaimed the name at this time …,” Nahko said in a news release. “It’s a statement to myself. I’m no longer a little bear. I’ve reached a place where I’ve progressed through this journey of music. I can share these songs from a very specific period today.” Revisiting those songs for “My Name Is Bear” proved to be an interesting experience for Nahko. “In the art of it, it was super fun to get to explore the version of the person that I am now telling those stories now,” he said during a recent interview with The Spokesman-Review. Looking at the music as an older musician, Nahko said the meaning behind some of the songs had changed. The message behind “Dragonfly,” in particular, changed for Nahko when he filmed the music video, which stars actress Paris Jackson (daughter of Michael). Nahko wrote the song at 18 after an experience with his first love that began in Alaska and ended in Louisiana. In the video, Jackson goes on a bike ride, runs on the beach and dances among the trees and in the ocean, with many scenes played in reverse. After presenting Jackson with the video treatment and hearing about certain things happening in her life, Nahko felt the meaning of the song shift. “It was really cool how it lined up and the meaning changed to be a song that became her story,” he said. “That the beauty of art is it really is malleable.”