What defines you

You can never make me like Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and K-pop music. It's not good music. Period. And I can tell you what good music is. 

Good music is music that defines our culture. It's music that has a sense of roots, and beginnings, and our origins. It's music in which you can dance to the sounds of nature. It's music in which you feel the hymn of the tribes. It's music that speaks of history and future (the fusion of old and new). It's music that turns the volume of nationalism up, to a higher level! 

And so, I've been loving the music of Pinikpikan. A band founded in 1989, a year earlier before I was born. And also, there's Kadangyan for this generation. 

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(photo from Pinikpikan's FB)

Pinikpikan's music is best described in their FB Page information. It goes:

It all started in 1989 at the first Baguio Arts Festival, Baguio City, home to many of the most renowned contemporary Filipino artists. After the Festival's opening, participating artists from Manila and the provinces had joined up with members of the Baguio Arts Guild for a dinner at the Cafe by the Ruins, Baguio´s homegrown cultural center. As they sat around the Café's "dap-ay" (a circular rock installation found in the tribal villages of the Cordillera where elders hold their council and initiation rites), someone picked up a couple of pieces of pinewood meant for the fire raging at the centre. Another picked up some bamboo segments. Rum and beer bottles were used. So were covers of pots and pans. Rocks were pounded. Sticks flailed. A rhythm was born influenced by the traditional beats of the surrounding indigenous Igorots. The well known rock band The Blank joined in with lead and bass guitars. A keyboard was set up. Saxophones and flutes appeared. The indigenous Bisaya and Ilonggo contingents from the southern islands of the Philippines connected with their melodies. The music was called "Rock ‘n´ Runo" (a reed found in the highlands similar to thin bamboo) as opposed to rock ‘n´ roll. Visual artist and founding member of the Baguio arts Guild, Manong BenCab named it PINIKPIKAN.

Really inspiring, those words and their music. I hope to discover more good Filipino music.

(Pinikpikan is an exotic Ilocano chicken dish. Papa actually knows how to cook it. And I've eaten it already. Really yummy!)