Marika Nakete:
Recorded live at Soul Studios, Suva – Producer: Craig ‘Doc’ Adams
Musical Influences:
Marika has been working in the music industry for the past 17 years, as a student at QVS Marika was doing backing vocals with the most prominent Fijian groups at the time, Kabu ni Delaikade, Sevo Raikoro just to name a few, as he grew in within the Fiji music industry he started doing work upcoming artists of the time like Seru Serevi, Laisa Vulakoro, Georgina Ledua and other groups.
Marika is a father of 4 and has released 2 albums and continues to this day to do work with a variety of artists doing backing tracks and touring with Laisa Vulakoro and assisting on projects with other local artists.
Marika has a band called the The Edge that performs at the Holiday Inn here in Suva and other local resorts along the Coral Coast and in the Western parts of the Fiji.
Marika was performing at the Holiday Inn when the Launch was being held for the MDGs go LIVE and heard about the project. Marika had meant to put in a request and was quite shocked to find out that the competition was closing in a week.
Whilst looking for inspiration to write his song for the competition, Marika remembered an advetisment he saw on television that had struck him, the ad featured an old man in a canoe and paddling down a river and all the man saw was rubbish, in the water along the water’s edge. After thinking about this, Marika thought of his children and what kind of future they would have if we continued to litter and not do anything about it.
The song ‘Na Benu Vakaveitalia’ is Marika’s response to littering and directly speaks to children as children are the leaders of tomorrow and the leaders within a family to change a family’s ideas and values towards their environment. This song is a challenge to children to try and become advocates for the environmental sustainability.
Vision:
Marika is a man living his dream, he has always wanted to be in the music industry and now he is doing what he always wanted to do. He also feels that as a young man with a young family, he wants to take take Fijian music to the world and work with musicians from other countries and learn from them and through this try and make a better life for himself and his family.
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