BY LORETTA B MANELE
A local artist, Bradford Leslie Bugotu who’s stage name is “Fordii” shared his music journey in a recent interview.
The 27-year-old is from Isabel and Guadalcanal Provinces and music for him started back in 2018 recording with two friends at a house, he says.
A few years went by and Fordii happened to meet Joe Briz and they started a band known as “50LO”.
As they continued with their music, somehow along the way he took a break from music because of school.
In 2020, he met Jammin who asked if he was still into making music to which he casually said “yes” and that he was still interested in making music.
So, this was the point where he went back to making music and in 2021, he released his first single called “Tuani”, a language from Isabel Province.
“Tuani means truth, like you’re saying something that is true”, Fordii explains.
From then on, he continued his music journey up until now, 2025.
Fordii happily says he’s released more than 10 singles including feature songs from collaborations with amazing artists in the likes of Mi Santana, Joe Briz, Andre and others.
He explains that in the Solomon Islands, it’s a bit difficult when it comes to promoting your music.
However, there are other platforms which you can use to do this, Fordii says pointing out “TikTok” and “Facebook” as examples.
“One of the online stores where I sell my songs at is Spotify,” he added.
Speaking of music in Solomon Islands and the Pacific region as a whole, Fordii says there’s big improvement in music.
He hopes that in the future, music from Solomon Islands and the Pacific region is exposed more to other countries.
When asked what type of music or genre he’s interested in, Fordii says he’s interested in Pop music, R & B music and Afro music.
At the moment, he is trying to experiment and find out which genre he’ll settle with.
“I like to incorporate different type of music, sometimes when doing Pop music, I add in Solomon Islands language for it to be more diverse,” Fordii says.
One challenge he stresses on is writing songs.
Fordii says it’s hard to write songs especially if it’s your first time to do it and you’re usually a situation where you have to actually sit down and write.
Interestingly, he said when he’s writing songs, he likes to get the experiences of people and use that in his music.
He also mentioned that he earns an income from his music through doing gigs here and there and from performing at events upon invitation.
As for what he’d say to upcoming artists, Fordii says they should not give up on their dreams, must be passionate about it, work hard and be consistent in what they do so they can achieve their music goals.
“And this not just for music but for other careers you want to pursue.
“Don’t give up just go and do what you’re doing,” he said.
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