THE FIJI Performing Rights Association says George Fiji Veikoso will attend the FPRA music awards as its celebrity guest artist on May 14, at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva.
“We have been trying for years to bring him over for a concert and this year we are so excited that we are finally able to do that,” Ms Movono-Rova said.
“He is being brought over thanks to the generosity of the official Airline of FPRA music awards supported by Tabs investments which is of course the Fiji Airways, our national carrier.”
Recently I had the opportunity to interview one of island reggae’s legendary artists, Fiji (George Brooks Veikoso). He’s one of the pioneers of the island reggae sound and continues to represent the Polynesian culture and music scene to this day. Fiji’s voice is soulful and moving. Coupled with the fluid sound from the islands of the Pacific and the strong cultural roots and history, his music refuses to be categorized and boxed up. It’s reggae, R&B, hip hop…it’s island music.
You can close your eyes, listen to Fiji, and be taken anywhere you choose. It’s spiritual. It’s grimy. It’s about love. It’s about community. It’s about culture. It’s about truth.
I’ve had a pretty humble beginning. I was born in Fiji. Where I was born was regarded as a ghetto in a garrison. Even though we were in a very poor area, it was full of athletes, musicians, and artists. As I was growing up, I had a lot of musicians to look up to. A lot of them were my uncles.
I landed in Hawaii at a tender age of 13 years old and I’ve been in America ever since. Being in Hawaii I learned a lot. I learned a lot from the #Jawaiian (Hawaiian reggae) movement. People I looked up to are like Bruddah Waltah, Mana’o Company, and Kapena. There are a lot of really great groups that were out at that time. You know I can’t even mention them all because there are so many. It was such a renaissance time for our music. It was a time when we were trying to distinguish our type of reggae. Jawaiian reggae is kind of like a political activist type of music. It stands for the indigenous people on one side and also for the musicianship coming off the rock (Hawaii) on the other.
Know this. Jawaiian will always be the undertone of our music no matter what. It’s definitely all island reggae. The thing some folks don’t understand about our music is that our music is very wide spread. It’s a mixture of not just reggae but R&B and other influences. We have an acoustic side with a lot of beautiful harmonies. It’s not one dimensional and it will never be that.
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