FilAm rapper Ruby Ibarra wins Tiny Desk competition; plans include a national tour

Ruby Ibarra

Ruby Ibarra, a Filipino American rapper, is  taking a major step in her music career after learning that she won the 11th annual Tiny Desk Contest.

On Tuesday's Morning Edition, NPR Music announced the winner of the 11th annual Tiny Desk Contest. 

"Tiny Desk is one of the few platforms where music is truly celebrated and artists get to uncompromisingly showcase their artistry, lyrics and stories," Ibarra tells NPR. "I'm grateful and overjoyed to be able to share my music in a space where so many of my musical influences have performed. To me, winning this Contest means to be recognized as a songwriter, and is an affirmation that I'm on the right path as an independent artist from the Bay Area."

The performance of  "Bakunawa," a combination of rap and singing in English and Tagalog, was chosen from nearly 7,500 submissions from independent artists across the country, the Bay Area artist captivated the judges with her striking originality, lyrical depth and commanding presence.

"Ruby's stunning Tiny Desk contest submission was the very first to be featured on our top shelf and the last one standing." 

Tiny Desk producer Bobby Carter tells NPR,  "'Bakunawa' covers all the bases: beautifully arranged music, passion and above all authenticity. We've never seen or heard anything like Ruby Ibarra. She's special and she's ready."

FYI: Watch her perform the winning entry, "Bakunawa," here.

IIbarra, who worked as a health scientist in the Bay Area, took the leap to full-time musician and performer in a few years ago.

Her raps often switches between Tagalog and English with the overriding themes of Pinoy Pride and empowerment, which makes her unique. She's been on the verge of "breaking out," for several years. Her Filipino American raps provided the background music for The Cleaning Lady television series, which centers around an undocumented immigrant Filipino family.

RELATED: From Fanny To Madam Wong's & The GRAMMYs: How The Asian Community Has Impacted Rock

Ibarra says about "Bakunawa: "The song's title is in reference to the Philippine mythology about a bakunawa (dragon) who swallows the moon; similarly, this song interprets the story as a metaphor for resistance and a battlecry against erasure. This song, for me, is a statement that my daughter is my revolution and my hope that she will be liberated from the effects of our cultural history."

She continues to tell Grammy.com, the song "features these amazing, incredible artists who are all Filipinos as well. Han Han, who’s a singer and an MC, Ouida from San Francisco, who is this amazing vocalist, and last but, of course, not least June Millington, who’s just a badass rock guitarist and singer. She was part of this incredible band from the 1970s called Fanny, an all-female band. To have done a collaboration with such a powerhouse of a lineup was just a dream come true. The music video and the live performance video… was just the icing on the cake for me to be able to come together in person."

As this year's winner, Ibarra will perform an intimate concert behind NPR's iconic Tiny Desk in Washington, D.C., joining the ranks of artists like Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter, Doechii and Usher, as well as acclaimed past Tiny Desk Contest winners, such as Fantastic Negrito, Gaelynn Lea and last year's winner, The Philharmonik.

Following her Washington D.C. showcase, Ibarra will embark on the Tiny Desk Contest On The Road tour, bringing her music to audiences across the country.

TINY DESK CONTEST TOUR

The Tiny Desk Contest On The Road tour, which brings the winner to stages around the country, will be bigger and better than ever this year. Audiences will have an opportunity to see this year's winner perform live in 10 cities, alongside a showcase of vibrant local music at each stop. And, new this year, each city will also feature a special surprise Tiny Desk alum as the headlining act.

        FYI: Tickets for the tour are on sale now at our Tiny Desk Contest tour page.

Curiously, the performances in Texas and Colorado are already sold out. Below are the scheduled stops along the 2025 Tiny Desk Contest On The Road tour:

June 11: The Regent Theater , Los Angeles (Station partners: KCRW, LAist)

June 13: Lagunitas Brewing Company, Petaluma, Calif. (Station partners: KQED, KALW, NorCal )

June 16: The Wonder Ballroom, Portland, Ore. (Station partner: OPB)

June 23: Thalia Hall, Chicago (Station partner: WBEZ)

June 25: The Basement East, Nashville (Station partner: WNXP)

June 27: Mohawk , Austin, Texas (Station partner: KUTX) — Sold Out

June 29: Bluebird Theater, Denver (Stations partner: KUVO) — Sold Out

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

TGIF Feature: BTS breaks NPR viewing records to benefit public media

Public media stations got a pleasant surprise last Monday. BTS, the 7-member boy group who are the current kings of K-pop, appeared on National Public Radio's Tiny Desk concert and set a record for online viewership.

And BTS' fans, who call themselves the BTS Army, came through big-time and ended up donating generously to the NPR-affiliated PBS, Public Broadcasting Stations that aired the laid-back, intimate concert.

Public radio stations are independent operations and there’s no central database of donations, says NPR spokesperson Isabel Lara, who notes that the concert now has more than 6 million views online, and NPR Music got 100,000 new subscribers to its YouTube channel since Monday morning. The Tiny Desk concert broke the viewership record in just 25 minutes.

One doesn't usually associate K-Pop with PBS or NPR, which skew towards an oldr demographic, but the nonprofit media might reconsider their audience with the success of the BTS appearance.

BTS had intended to spend 2020 selling out arenas around the world, only to spend these last few months performing in isolation in their hometown of Seoul. It took a global pandemic to get on the group's schedule. 

Billie Eilish previously held the first-day Tiny Desk record for views, with 782,000 on the first day of her session. BTS had 700,000 views in the first 15 minutes the mini-concert was online, and more than 950,000 by end of the session, NPR’s Anais Laurent says.

Without their coordinated clothing and noted choreography, the Korean band dressed casually, seated in a row for their session, taped at the Vinyl & Plastic by Hyundai Card record store in Seoul. It was is also the first occasion on which the group performed its No. 1 hit, an upbeat, funky “Dynamite,” its first all-English recording with a live band. A couple of them couldn't sit still and had to get up and dance.

From there they went into a more mellow, ballad mode, with "Save ME," from 2016.

“It’s been the roughest summer ever,” BTS’s RM says in the session, “but we know that spring will come” before moving into another of their hits, “Spring Day.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For those who might have missed the performance on Monday, enjoy:

Anecdotally, Lara says, people—many of them for the first time—definitely seem to be donating to say thanks for the concert, something they've been missing in these pandemic times.

Gabe Rosenberg, the digital news editor for Columbus, Ohio, NPR affiliate WOSU, encouraged the BTS Army to donate to public radio stations to say thanks.

Rosenberg’s social media quickly filled with responses from BTS fans saying they’d done exactly that, a phonomenon also experienced by other NPR affiliates such as the San Francisco-based KQED.

“My TweetDeck was relatively unusable for most of the day.” Rosenberg says the surge of contributions is especially welcome during an extremely trying time for local journalism. “One Tiny Desk concert can’t really reverse the effects of a pandemic on a local newsroom’s budget, but it does something to make you a little optimistic about why you’re doing what you’re doing.”

The donations are not new to the BTS Army. When BTS donated $1 milllion to Black Lives Matter, in 24 hours, the Army matched the donation. At every concert venue, the group donates a portion of their earnings to a local charity.

Ruby Ibarra's latest rap: An ode to her immigrant mother

SCREEN CAPTURE / YOUTUBE

Ruby Ibarra, right, performs "Someday" with the Balikbayans.

Filipino American rap artist Ruby Ibarra entered NPR's Tiny Desk contest with her creation "Someday," honoring the travails and sacrifices of her mother, who immigrated from the Philippines.

While she didn't win the contest (with over 6,000 entries) she impressed the judges enough that NPR wrote a separate article about her. She tells National Public Radio:

"It is my declaration that my mother and I will make it in this country. I think that when we talk about immigration, especially in mainstream media, much of that is often romanticized and simplified; the experience and struggles are overlooked and the formation of identity and sense of belonging are neglected.

"When my mom moved to California from the Philippines in 1991, she went from being an accountant to a fast food janitor/cashier. She left everything behind in her motherland in hopes to provide better opportunities for me and my younger sister. She learned quickly how to be on survival mode and realized that the American Dream was far more complex than the mainstream narrative. The song "Someday" captures these themes and most importantly, captures my mother's story, which is ultimately a similar story for many immigrants — trying to find a place to call home."

The San Francisco-based rapper tells NPR that her mother always remained a model of resilience for Ibarra and her sister. "She was the matriarch and the patriarch in our household," Ibarra says. "She was always my example of what it meant to be Pinay, a woman who pretty much did s*** on her own, carried everything on her own back."

The chorus, "Mama we goin' make it here someday" is meant to be a promise, says Ibarra.

"I want to reach a point someday where I can look at her in the face and say that we made it," Ibarra says. "I think that sense of belonging, that sense of hope, is a thread that's very common in a lot of immigrant stories."

On the verge of breaking out nationally, Ibarra says that she hopes through her music and message she is able to pass inspiration on to others who want to do the same. Although she speaks about her Filipino American experience, her message conveys the feelings, hopes and dreams of all people of color.

"I am what I talk about in my music. I am Pinay, I'm powerful, I'm fearless, I'm unfiltered," Ibarra says in the NPR interview. "And I like to hope that there's young women out there who feel the same way. Or even if they don't feel the same way, I hope to inspire young women out there to want to use their voice, to claim who they are and to embrace their identity."

I include the lyrics to "Someday" because my baby boomer ears can't catch all the nuances of contemporary rap. (Sorry!) 

I wrote this album ‘cause I want my life to change
Tired of being shortchanged, I'm tryna remain sane
Hopped off the plane, didn’t stop all the pain
My father’s still in debt and we've been struggling to pay
For a bedroom upon Meekland Ave., reachin for just meeting half
Hands tied against the odds, how the fuck you even that?
The people from the slums once, now livin’ the humdrum
Mama from the barrio so we dreamin’ we can stunt once
Mama, I know it’s gon’ be fine wherever we go
'Cause we know, you raised this girl to dream and be a hero
What’s an ego to an eagle? I free flow when I speak though
My pipe dreams through a peephole, my skin so Filipino
But often times my pride, inside, is fightin’ high tides
The day we broke the ocean was the day I learned to nosedive
Closed eyes, fingerprint ink with the most dye
Those times, mama never blinked, say the oath twice

[Chorus]
I said mama we gon’ make it there someday
I said mama we gon’ make it there someday
I said mama we gon’ make it there someday
I said mama we gon’ make it there someday
I said mama we gon’ make it here someday
I said mama we gon’ make it here someday
I said mama we gon’ make it here someday
I said mama we gon’ make it here someday


[Verse 2]
So what's a freestyle to me? I been doing as a 6-year-old
Thinkin’ on my own 2 feet, survival pick and go
Pick a role - you can be the swimmer or a sunken soul
I was a 6-year-old without a father figure role
No silver spoons or dinner rolls, so will you fold or will you go?
Pretend to sing like Figaro, my people still invisible
When you the spittin’ image of a person that you hate
Makes sense I'm spittin' images of dawn that never breaks
Nirvana never waits, I was a pawn of bitter fate
That spawned from inner hate, I never wanted to be great
I study my mother wonder how she holds this family
That minimum salary, stretched as much as it can be
She stressed but keeps that shit from me, I’m just tryna fit in, see
I crave for that acceptance like it validates my sanity
I wrestle with affirmations, settle for masking faces
After all, the stolen lands are always greener places

(Chorus)

[Verse 3]
At school, reduced lunches while my mama skip her lunchtime
9 to 5 minimum wage, she at the bus line
Here I am, filling a page, waiting to bust rhymes
‘Til I’m nearing the day I’m getting cosigned
Snare rolls and punchlines to payrolls and punch time
We take shows like crunch time, we braved those like front lines
My life on these lines ‘cause we never had lifelines
And these days I’m scared of what might go through my mind
I flow like Rizal and I’m writing like Hagedorn
Mixed with Gabriela Silang, now watch as the page mourns
Say my name, it tastes foreign
Type to make your face form in ways you never made
Born from another place, thorns couldn’t break away
Or am I just a breakaway?
From being centre stage from off the page or will I fade away?
I never been the type to say I’m scared of what I have to face
‘Cause all I ever knew is being me so all I ever need to say is…

(Chorus)

Click here to listen to NPR.

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