Tall John started off as a cleaner, mopping floors and cleaning tables, but after a few months he became the house DJ. “In fact, all the boys from the neighbourhood would go to work there during the school breaks.” “I dropped out because I was going through some serious family issues, and because my friend’s family owned Mighty Sparrows in those days, I decided to work there. Originally from Lomaiviti, Tall John was born and raised in Nadi and after dropping out of high school in Year 10, he decided to spend his time working at the Mighty Sparrows nightclub in Nadi (now Deep Sea). “I remember we were having dinner once and I started banging on the table, but that just met my father’s instant disapproval. “After that encounter with the drums, I started banging on tables, chairs and pretty much anything. Tall John remembers pretty much honing his skills on any hard surface before him. My namesake had just come back from playing with his band, so he kept the instruments at home for their next session.” “I woke up one morning and there was a full set of instruments in the room. “The first instrument I touched were the drums,” he says. His love for the drums began when he laid his eyes on a drum kit in his namesake’s room back in Vatukoula many years ago. Known to many as a true reggae pioneer, there wasn’t a reggae hit that Tall John couldn’t play. From school dropout to disc jockeying to finally becoming the drummer of Fiji’s first exclusive reggae bands, this is the story of John Kuimaiwasa - aka Tall John.
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