Eremasi Rova and Music Production 

So many of our dreams are born when we least expect it. One day we’re going about our normal way and the next we’re totally consumed with an idea, a dream and a goal that takes over our whole life. This is what happened to Eremasi Rova, a young boy sitting in a primary school classroom in Fiji, many years ago. His dream has brought him further than he ever expected, and we’re excited to say this self taught musician and producer is well on his way to an established career in the entertainment industry. (Story covered by Katarina Uluibau).

Tell us a bit about yourself, the work that you do, and how you came to follow that career path?

My name is Eremasi Rova, and I’m a music producer going by the stage name of E.3, living in Fiji. I’m of mixed race, half native-Fijian on my father’s side and American on my mother’s. I was born in the UK but grew up in Fiji, attending Natabua High School and the University of the South Pacific later on.

The career I have as a music producer has been a very interesting but totally random one and has allowed me to travel the world and meet many interesting people.

I first got into music production as a primary school student in Year 8, where a teacher I had gave me the FL Studio software to try and to play around with. I spent all my free time using it, and it became everything I thought about as a teenager and young adult. All throughout my life from that point on I spend at least a minimum of an hour or two producing music every day. This is the path that I have followed that has led me to who I am today.

I’ve produced and featured in songs that have appeared consecutively on Radio Australia’s ‘Best of the Pacific: Pacific Break’ compilation CDs, have had my tracks played (and performed) at various festivals around the world, and have seen some of our tracks reach the top of local radio charts.

Outside of the main genre that I produce, which is hip-hop, I’ve also produced music for Tourism Fiji and worked extensively for the VOU Dance Group, one of the projects being the creation of music for a feature length dance production.

Because of the music I produce I’ve needed to find ways to reach larger audiences, and have begun to focus on music videos. This has led me to also get into video production and photography, and so I work as a free-lance videographer and photographer, finding most of my work through shooting weddings and events in Fiji’s tourism industry.

What have been the biggest challenges in your line of work?

I think the biggest challenge personally was to teach myself how to achieve something only by looking at or hearing an end product (for me it was chart-topping American hip-hop music), and piecing together the steps and processes that were needed to reach that end result.

This meant endless hours and hours of experimenting with sounds, mixing, absorbing material online and learning from other sources. I am completely self-taught and have never received any formal training or instruction, and so it has always been all about finding things out the hard way and discovering them.

Also, working in Fiji means you need to do everything yourself, and so you’re pretty much required to diversify your skill set if you hope to get anywhere with your art form. As a music producer, this has meant that I have had to learn how to play instruments and learn music theory, learn how to mix music and develop my ear for sound, learn how to write songs and use words as a means of creating imagery and conveying a message, and finally marketing the music to different audiences.

There are many other aspects that I haven’t mentioned, but they are too far ranging and varied to include. Needless to say, in order to succeed you must learn a lot and also be extremely good at the things you learn.

What motivates you to push forward with all that you do?

Throughout my life I’ve always been a spiritual person and have held strong Christian beliefs, and I believe that we as individuals are all blessed with talents from God. The talent I’ve been given is to be good with music, and I only wish to reach my highest potential with it regardless of where the path takes me.

What advice do you have for young Pacific people who might be thinking of doing the same thing?

The world is your playground, and remember that everything you do in the present will have an effect later on in your life. Everything.

Go out and learn as much as you can, live as much as you can, be smart about who you become and who you associate with and above all, pursue things you enjoy.

If you’re curious about something, never let that die or fade away – that spark is there for you to develop into a brilliant flame.

Nothing is impossible, and all it takes is a little belief in yourself and your abilities, and when things seem like they are too much for you to handle – don’t be afraid to look upwards for your strength.

We’d like to thank Eremasi for sharing his story with us. If you’d like to hear his music, support his work, or learn more about what he does, you can find his music and social media contact via the links below. We wish Eremasi all the best and we look forward to hearing and seeing more of his work! 

Soundcloud
https://soundcloud.com/eremasi
https://soundcloud.com/e3fiji

Follow Eremasi on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/e3theproducer