Go QVS
Savenaca Vakaliwaliwa,
Canada
The Victorian family in Fiji and abroad is happy that five teams from Queen Victoria School, from Under 14 to U18 are in the Coke Zero Deans finals this week.
The Deans U18 final between QVS and MBHS should be a cracker as the Red Fire squad will be burning hot to make amends for last year and stop their very long Deans Trophy drought.
To the boys from Vulinitu, you did it last week and if you remain confident in Him, you can do it again!
Go QVS.
Anything is possible
Tukai Lagonilakeba,
Nadi
You have got to want a win with a gold medal so badly, you have got to have your mind set right, all our Fijian athletes together with our 7s rugby teams and soccer have all been proven fit, ready and prepared, showcase and display their talent in representing the country at the world’s biggest sporting event, the Olympics in Rio.
They all aspire and pray God willing some of them will create surprises and bring a medal back home for all expectant Fijians to celebrate and remember for the many years to come at the same time setting a challenge for our future Olympians to go a notch up from which our government has provided the incentives for such and the grand official opening has set the platform for all to witness an equal playing field for our athletes to prove themselves to the world.
The individual stories depicted from the 2016 from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics official opening show is one of multiracialism with its multicultural society successfully living side by side in harmony through diversity.
These proud Brazilians have together built their great nation and economy for all who call it home to enjoy.
I feel our country and all Fijians alike can certainly take a leaf or two out this beautiful nation’s progress in relations to our 2013 constitution.
Very professionally choreographed with perfect synchronization their artistic creations of a display aided with very advanced technology, its fantastic super climate change display is a stark reminder to its reality and we do hope the world and its superpowers are getting the message.
Go Team Fiji; to be there alone as an athlete is a credit and an experience to behold in itself, a medal or no medal you are all setting the bar.
Go get it team Fiji, anything is possible.
Blame it on the rain
Dr Sushil K. Sharma ,
Lautoka
It would appear that the only thing Vili Yaranamua thought when he heard this song being played at the ANZ arena when he was buying his ticket (FS 31/07/16) was the rain in Suva on that day and a thought for the forthcoming Hibiscus, wishing people would not to blame the rain again, as it did last year at the foreshore.
However besides the great lyrics and the medley of beautiful R and B music associated with this song there is a great story of deceit, rags to riches to rags again, famous to dishonour, the cut throat exploitation of the music industry and also the death of famous musicians at a young age.
Milli Vanilli to whom the two very popular and famous songs “Blame it on the rain” and “Girl you know it’s true” is attributed never in fact sang any of the songs.
Instead they were contracted and duped a cruel agent to lip sing it instead. Unable to extricate from the contracts, and finding new fame, the pair continued to lip-sing the songs as pre-recorded and finished for them.
Contemporary R&B, also known as simply R&B, is a music genre that combines elements of rhythm and blues, soul, funk, pop, hip hop and dance according to Wikipedia and the genre features a distinctive record production style, drum machine-backed rhythms, an occasional saxophone-laced beat to give a jazz feel (mostly common in contemporary R&B songs prior to the year 1995) and a smooth, lush style of vocal arrangement.
Vanilli was a German R and B singer from Munich. The group was founded by Frank Farian in 1988 and consisted of Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus.
Frank Farian felt that no efforts should be focused on refining Pilatus and Morvan’s voices. Farian added his own studio-augmented voice to recordings, using back-up singers to hide the other two members’ voices live.
In 2011 Morvan claimed that Farian manipulated the two by giving them a small advance when he signed them. The pair spent most of it on clothes and hairstyling, then several months later Farian called them back and told them they had to lip sync to the pre-recorded music or, per the contract, repay the advance in full.
“We were not hired, we were trapped” Morvan recalled.
The group’s debut album “Girl You Know It’s True” achieved international success and earned them a Grammy Award for Best New Artist on February 21, 1990.
Vanilli became one of the most popular pop acts in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Their success quickly turned to infamy when Morvan, Pilatus and their agent Sergio Vendero confessed that Morvan and Pilatus did not actually sing any of the vocals heard on the record.
The pair decided to return the Grammy awards and asked they be given to the real vocalists. The group recorded a comeback album in 1998, but Pilatus died before the album was released.
Thus when Mr Yaranamua heard the song at the ANZ stadium, it surely would have brought about goose bumps to those familiar with the Vanilli saga.
Whatever the case people loved the duo and admired their abilities and antiques, and till today still associate the songs to the lip-sync duo artists, rather than the real singers.
Feedback: jyotip@fijisun.com.fj