By Ben Wheeler
In case you hadn’t heard, Francisco Bhagwan has been dropping music online – and with it jaws – across Fiji. His breakout single Silver Lining, written and recorded with V5, is a soaring and sublime melodic meld of genres and influences.
Now, less than a year later, his stunning debut EP Mangrove Seed is available online and you can catch the whole thing live at Sema Mai this Thursday as part of the ongoing Fiji Fringe Festival.
“My earliest memories were me on my dad’s old keyboard that he bought about four years before I was born,” Bhagwan begins.
“I’d go to the percussion and play drums on it. I basically grew up with that keyboard for the first 16 years of my life, and through that, I kind of got into everything.”
By everything he means writing, producing, arranging, performing and recording incredible original songs in his bedroom at just 20 years of age.
“I started recording different instruments and would just make covers of songs by UB40 and Christafari, this Christian reggae band from LA.”
Growing up he mentions his family had a penchant for playing Brazilian musician Sérgio Mendes and Gold FM on car rides, and how his father the Reverend James Bhagwan and his best friend, the late DJ Tora, would play him jazz-electro pioneer Herbie Hancock.
During the COVID lockdowns he found himself picking up Hancock’s masterclass and through it, discovering singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jacob Collier, an experience he describes as “brain expanding”.
It is a heady brew of influences and inspirations that explain the depth, breadth and confidence of his music. I doubt you could fabricate a cooler path to music production.
“Then I got a laptop for the first time, and I just started recording onto that computer, and it just escalated.”
When he was getting ready to release Mangrove Seed, Bhagwan approached Ben Masirewa, who was playing guitar at the extraordinary Suva production of Mamma Mia! asking him to play on the track 140 Degrees.
“On it he shreds not one, but two killer solos,” Bhagwan says with excitement.
The song itself is a minor masterpiece, a groovy syncopated fusion of funk, soul and R’n’B, an epic instrumental ride that will move you physically, while Bhagwan’s well-crafted, powerful yet plaintively delivered lyrics move you emotionally.
Mangrove Seed, which includes singles Silver Lining and Manta Ray, closes with Last Night at The Windowsill, which comes across like Jose Feliciano channelling Beck.
It is safe to say this young man has talent and vibes beyond his age, and to hear them live is really breath-taking stuff.
This week, exclusively at the Fiji Fringe Festival, you can see Bhagwan and Masirewa team up with Ju Ben, Naiqama Lalabalavu and Ben Skiie, accompanied by V5 for night billed as “Fijian music as you’ve never heard it before.”
To my ears they are not wrong.
It is a treat to see local musicians playing original material, and when the quality of music is this high, draws on some of the finest sonic influences from around the world, and is interpreted and performed by some of the very best musicians in Fiji, it would be foolish not to see what all the fuss is about.
Sema Mai will feature a night of original Fijian hip-hop, jazz soul and funk, so come together and bring the Fijian funk back on Thursday 3rd April at 7pm.
