FilAm Heritage

As Filipinx American Heritage month comes to a close, it’s not too late to celebrate the cultural impact FilAm artists have brought to American popular culture as well as music as a whole in the last few decades. Cultivating spaces not just for creative freedom in predominantly White genres and fields, these artists are paving the way and redefining music their way.

RITTYBO

Hailing from Oakland, California. RITTYBO is unsigned and unbothered chartering a new sound and style in the Bay Area. Culminating a network of peeps from all over and majoring in graphic design, high fashion, and film, RITTYBO is becoming an epicenter of a new generation of art and creativity. Already garnering a feature with Bay Area rapper G-Eazy and starting her own band “Juicy Black” with her friends, RITTYBO is set to create something wonderful beyond herself.

URBANATION

Urbannation, aka, Bianca Ocampo is a San Francisco native, singer, instrumentalist with an angelic voice and passion for songwriting whose style can be akin to Angel Olsen and Bob Dylan. Ocampos music can be described as impeccably vulnerable yet comforting through soft harmonies and relatable lyrics. With a college degree under her belt and an album on the way, Ocampo is destined to release something so profoundly pleasing to the ears.

JAY DE LA CRUZ

Continuing the trend of representing the Bay Area, is Jay De La Cruz, an SF native whose airy voice is as sensual as it is enchanting. Her SoundCloud tells individual tales of vulnerability and discomfort with her interactions with others with an overall deeply beautiful production.

ROCKY RIVERA

Rocky Rivera is more than a musician and more than a spoken word poet. Rivera is a symbol for many amongst the FilAm community. Through their work in community organization, youth leadership and activism, the cultural phenom is expressing what it means to be a “pinnay warrior” among a world built on patriarchy and white supremacy. Using her words as her weapons, Rivera is determined to utilize the beauty of her community and create a future built on equity and justice.

BELAIRES

Belaires is an alternative pop band based in Astoria, New York. These Island Records signees aim to leave their mark on new age rock music with their most recent album Mint, which is already culminating accolades from the Philippine Association of the Record Industry