Community and culture are two guiding forces in Ruby Ibarra's music. The Filipina American rapper — and 2025 Tiny Desk Contest winner — is joined by rock legend June Millington and an all-Filipino band.
Community and culture are two guiding forces in Ruby Ibarra's music. The Filipina American rapper — and 2025 Tiny Desk Contest winner — is joined by rock legend June Millington and an all-Filipino band.
We received nearly 7,500 entries from independent artists across the country for the Tiny Desk Contest. That's a record for the project, now in its 11th year, which has catapulted the careers of artists like Grammy winnersWhen arriving at the Tiny Desk, Ibarra was poised, gracious and a little reserved. We could tell she was taking in the moment that she would later call"surreal." But as soon as she got situated behind the Desk, she locked in. Community and culture are two guiding forces in Ibarra's music. She put together an all-Filipino band for this performance, which includes R&B singer Ouida and members of Pinay Voltron and Astralogik, plus rock legendOn"Bakunawa," a song about Filipino folklore and motherhood, Ibarra performs in English, Tagalog and Bisaya, switching effortlessly between the three languages from one verse to the next. On"7000 Miles," she raps about her and her family's experiences as immigrants."My mom will make it in America" is a verse she repeats while looking into the teary eyes of her mother, who sits front row in the audience with a box of tissues. At the end of"Someday," Ibarra changes the song's refrain from"Mama, we gon' make it here someday" to"Mama, we gon' make it hereBetween flows, Ibarra introduces herself and makes a statement:"Being human is not illegal. Immigrants have been here, lived here, worked here. And this immigrant
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