Filipino American rapper and Bay Area resident Ruby Ibarra has won the 2025 Tiny Desk contest. As the winner, she and her band performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series. I had never heard of this former research scientist before, and her and her band’s performance pleasantly surprised me.
As I mentioned, Ibarra’s performance surprised me. Bakunawa, the first song in the concert and her submission to the contest, is sung and rapped in three languages: English, Tagalog, and Bisaya. As a Bay Area resident, I hear a lot of the first two languages, but not really the last one. Having a band actually performing instead of just a DJ pleased me greatly. I really loved their sound – the fact there was so much effort put into live music impressed me. In another surprise, Ibarra includes Rock and Roll Pioneer June Millington in her band! Ibarra’s songs had may references to issues faced by Filipino Americans, such as colorism and immigrants parents never being around since they are working so much.
We have featured other Tiny Desk performances, such as this one by the Linda Lindas. According to this article, Ruby Ibarra is planning a short Tiny Desk tour. FYI, the Bakunawa is a dragon in Filipino Folklore.
(photo credit: Fobanese licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.)
