Future of food

Young general marches to his own top tune

HWatch the video at nzherald.co.nz One of New Zealand’s youngest talents is back in the limelight with another hit single and three nominations at the upcoming Pacific Music Awards.

Twelve-year-old Lotima Nicholas Pome’e, aka General Fiyah, co-wrote and was lead singer for the catchy Island Reggae tune

The song has had more than half a million views on YouTube and has seen the young talent nominated for Best Pacific Male Artist and Best Pacific Song awards.

The song is also up for the best Pacific Video Award.

“I feel honoured to be nominated because I look up to those other artists,” says Pome’e. “I’ve been doing music since I was a toddler and I was singing since I was 10 months old.

“I couldn’t pronounce the words, I could only hum.”

Pome’e first hit the headlines in 2016 when he joined his father’s and uncle’s renowned Otara reggae-pop band, Three Houses Down. His first single with the band,

went viral, racking up more than 2.5 million YouTube views.

“It was my dream to join the band so they gave me one chance,” he says.

Pome’e balances King’s Prep schoolwork with band practice as well as appearing on TV shows and giving concerts from Australia to Hawaii.

The Vodafone 2018 Pacific Music Awards will be held tomorrow at the Vodafone Events Centre in Auckland. Data and the future of food as we know it are the focus of a major collaboration with Singaporean scientists that’s been given a $57 million boost by the Government. The “enhanced partnership” with the island city-state over the next four years was announced in last week’s Budget. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment said the project would build on work the two nations had done together on science, technology and innovation over more than four decades. The proposed “future foods” scheme would aim to develop food products from novel sources to meet demand for environmentally sustainable, nutritious and affordable diets.