No stranger to the local hip hop scene, Willie Usuramo, better known by his stage name ‘Wilo’ has been making music since 2000.

Mr Usuramo was part of the Roots for Roots group that came out with the popular single “Cava tiko Mada boy” back in 2011.

He has been involved with popular local groups like Troupe 10, Roots for Roots, and X9 Homies over the years.

With X9 Homies, they released eight mixtape albums and their first popular music video in 2011 called ‘Feeling OK’.

“My inspiration to do music came from my father during his drinking sessions playing reggae music, and that’s where the love of music came from,” he said.

His style of music is raggamuffin or raga, which is a kind of reggae rap that includes digitised backing instrumentation. He was introduced to raga through a friend and fell in love with it.

“There’s only a few raga artist right now in Fiji so I’m trying to get more artists in this genre.”

Though Mr Usuramo was born in Fiji, he was raised in the Solomon Islands. He moved back to Fiji in 2000.

He has performed at home grown concerts and hip hop battles and was featured on the ABC Radio Pacific Way.

As an artist, he feels some of the challenges are the lack of resources if he wishes to record a song.

“Studio sessions can be very costly and most artists are from struggling backgrounds,” he said.

He said his crew started off with a faulty computer to record their first song.

“Lack of a platform in hip hop as well, thinking that it can‘t succeed in Fiji, but it actually can if people supported it.”

His advice to upcoming artists is to keep writing and seek advice from other music artists in the industry.

“If you really want your dreams to come true, you have to put in the time, effort, and money,” he said.

He attributes his success and inspiration to his family and friends.

Mr Usuramo is currently working on releasing eight singles and producing several music videos this year. He considers his music as underground.