The Vodafone Pacific Music Awards is set to take place at the Vodafone Events Centre tonight, the event will acknowledge the success of Pacific artists and celebrate excellence in Pacific music. Tonight, Brother Love is receiving a lifetime music award.
From the golden shores of Manihiki to Māngere, island sensation Rahui Vaka a.k.a Brother Love has toured the Pacific for most of his life, bringing joy and entertainment through music.
Singer, Rahui Vaka says, "Musos have been on the road with me from here, Tahiti, Hawaii, everywhere. We've sort of like bunched together for this one type of music so we go spread it out to the world you know."
Ruketekete te Mamae, a familiar song that gets the head nodding and the toes tapping. This track saw Brother Love rise to the top of the charts. The song has had more than 1.2 million views on YouTube, which has come as a surprise.
Rahui says, "To me that's good but that's freaking me out because I didn't think I could have a million viewers, never thought of a million viewers in any time of my life."
Rahui will be the first recipient of a lifetime achievement award at the Vodafone Pacific Music Awards, marking another milestone. However, Rāhui says his lifetime of playing music hasn't finished yet.
Rahui says, "It's a great honour, not many Cook Islanders have come this way and gone up to this category but for me a lot of patience a lot of take it easy and just wait what's gonna happen but the main thing is you gotta keep going out there and producing the music and keep going because the fans never stop listening."
Rahui is jet setting to Rarotonga next week to begin filming for a music video to compliment his new album What a Wonderful World, the album is due to drop later this year.