It's been his passion and life for as long as he can remember, now Hoani Kake has come home to turn his passion into a business.
Kake, better known as Hazaduz, has performed worldwide and toured with Che Fu as his right-hand man but decided this year that he'd spent enough of his life performing other people's music and it was time to focus on his own.
Now he's received funding to record his first album and next year will team up with Maori Television for a series following his return to Rotorua called Hazaduz Back in the Hood.
The series is expected to be filmed from March and will follow him through the recording process, as well as take a "bit of a holistic" view on his return to Rotorua.
Kake said returning to Rotorua from Australia was the push he needed to focus on his own music as a business. "I've been a full-time musician for the last 15 years. This is something I've always wanted to do, but I wasn't confident in my own music."