Gloc-9: A Pinoy rapper and his painful truths

Only the removed from Pinoy pop culture, only the elitist, maybe the ones who don’t listen to local radio, or even browse through the OPM section of the record store, would not know Gloc-9. Or maybe you’re one of those who’d rather not hear about the state of the nation, especially because its tragedies and poverties are a pointed finger at you.

In her now defunct noontime show, Kris Aquino once asked Gloc-9 to rap. It was expectedly about hunger of some form or other. Kris promptly asked: Puwede yung masaya naman? Where lies the happy On a recent rainy Friday evening, Gloc-9’s humility was a bright light. So was his honesty. He was talking about his life of struggle, the one that had brought him to the point of studying to be a nurse, the one that had made him imagine that rap wasn’t a career path that would allow him to put food on the table for his young family. He has since been proven wrong of course, but that’s beside the point. The point being that unlike plenty of Pinoys who gain an amount of fame and a wee bit of fortune, and are instantly changed by it, Gloc-9 seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders. One that remains unaffected for the most part by the shiny things that fame and fortune can bring. He mentions being asked often: why don’t you wear bling? why don’t you wear those fancy jackets? Gloc-9 shakes his head at the absurdity. Siguro kung nasa Amerika ako, siguro kung yun ang konteksto ko. It might also be the answer to the question of writing English songs. More importantly, it’s a response to Kris Aquino. In fact, what’s most surprising is how the question of happiness even figures in the question of original Pinoy music (OPM): we after all know enough of its poverties to see that none of it can be happy. Not those ballads that speak of love, not those novelty songs on our daily shows, not that indie rock song you only hear at a band’s gigs. The conditions that surround the production of any of these songs speak of the sad state of music as cultural product in this country. There’s the lack of state support. The globalized music industry. The standardized aesthetic and taste that popular cultural entities, i.e., TV networks, create. And then there’s Gloc-9. He who seems to be looking in on the nation at the same time that he lives in it, he who on the one hand points a finger and on the other is actually looking at his own reflection. There is an amount of self reflexivity in Gloc-9, and it is revealed not just in the original Pinoy music that he creates, but in the processes of production it involves itself in, including of course living with eyes wide open in a nation that demands it. That he has seen more than many of us have, and that this has only fueled songs unlike any other in this country, now that might be the happiest thing. The tale of the rap icon If there’s one thing that strikes you about Gloc-9’s humility, it’s the fact not so much of its sincerity, but of its touchstone: Francis Magalona. In words, in photos saved on his phone, in just the sadness in his eyes, Gloc-9 pays tribute to the man any Pinoy should know as the Master Rapper, the Man from Manila. He was, across Gloc-9’s life, a dream. Gloc-9 speaks of memories. Memories of listening to Francis Magalona’s first album Yo! (1990) and like the rest of the nation in the throes of post-EDSA 1986, becoming a fan. “Mga Kababayan" was our anthem, at least for those of us who also began to be enamored by the idea of OPM, the idea that there could be music to call our own. In the midst of the balladeers and rock bands, there was Pinoy rap personified in Francis Magalona. He who would later be known as his own ism, as a particular ideology: FrancisM. francism. And then another memory: walking home from school with a bunch of his classmates, and without knowing how or why Gloc-9 breaks into rap, freestyle. His schoolmates crowd around him, and he remembers liking how it felt, he remembers thinking: astig ‘to. By then FrancisM wasn’t just a household name, but had evolved into the nationalism he stood for. Anyone who speaks of the Master Rapper’s legacy must know that his was an artistry that evolved not just in terms of form, but even more so in content. My own memory is that of FrancisM on stage early into the EDSA Dos rallies against Erap Estrada. He was singing a song that particularly allowed us all to scream: Isa kang ulupong! But Gloc-9 has more memories with FrancisM, the ones that happened when by some stroke of good luck, maybe as a matter of destiny, the latter took him on not as protege, but as anak-anakan (as he says in a televised birthday greeting), and as friend. Gloc-9 still seems surprised by it all, by the kind of friendship that he struck with the one person who could take credit for his dream of rap, but also the one person who made it possible for this to become career: yes, it now puts food on the table, and kids through school. Many other stories he tells seem too personal, many others must be only theirs. From my perspective, sitting as I do across the table, looking at photos saved on Gloc-9’s phone, all of it just seems surreal. To meet someone who is as much of a fan of FrancisM as I am, to find that they were really and truly friends, and then to be treated as if I had a right to be privy to some of it. Privy enough to see that this might be Gloc-9’s difference from FrancisM: the latter was in the business of rap on his own, with no one even coming close to becoming his rival, while the former knows he is no second coming, no replacement. Instead Gloc-9 knows that the space he fills is one borne of FrancisM’s kindness; he knows of this spot, right this very minute, and elsewhere in the world that he’s performed at any other time, because he was lucky enough to know FrancisM. What FrancisM must have also seen of course, is the fact of Gloc-9’s talent. OPM according to Gloc-9 Diploma, matrikula, talumpati. No, these aren’t just words we equate with school as they are the titles of Gloc-9’s past three albums, the ones that marked a sense of accomplishment, the ones that allowed for one or two or three songs an amount of airplay, and some good ol’ recognition, always to Gloc-9’s surprise. But maybe it was no surprise that a song like “Sumayaw Ka" would do well, it is after all the kind of rap that gets more radio airplay where we come from, that gets some TV show or other to use it as theme, or that gets a smorgasbord of artists trying it on for size. The rap is slower, the point is to get people to dance, no depth needed: dance rap lives, and it’s in the beginnings of Gloc-9. In this sense “Lando" could only be the real surprise of the Diploma album, also because it is a clear indication of the kind of vision Gloc-9 would end up having in his future work: it’s one that’s not just about living in this nation’s poverties and writing about it, but about seeing the silenced and speaking about its possibilities. The taong grasa is the subject of this song, the story that might have brought him to the point of crazy and onto the streets. Ito ay kwentong hango na galing sa dalawang taong / Nagmamahalan ng tunay ang ngala’y Elsa at Lando / At kahit parang pagkakataon ay nakakandado / Dahil magkalayo ang uri ng buhay ang estado. The story begins as a love story, as many things do in this country. But it begins too with Gloc-9’s ability at reconfiguring that story into words that speak of unfreedom, of being locked into the social classes we are born into. The repeated chorus of the song speaks to the taong grasa’s lone existence, the one that keeps people from caring, the one that tells him be unafraid, you are not alone. FrancisM sings the chorus in this, Gloc-9’s first runaway hit. That layer of meaning is difficult to ignore. This kind of heavier rapping, both in a form that’s faster and in content that’s more political if not more about nation, is what’s in Matrikula, which to me is Gloc-9’s first “real album" in the sense that it is all his creativity and ability at collaboration (especially with musical arrangements by Jonathan Ong to whom he gives credit, and music videos by J Pacena), all his vision, all his story. Matrikula is to Gloc-9, as Rap is FrancisM was to FrancisM. A coming of age of sorts, but even more so an insistence on a clearer and more stable identity as artist, as poet, as rapper in our context. Listening to Matrikula is like reading the story of Gloc-9’s life as lived on the streets of Manila, within a personal history that’s been difficult, and knows exactly who to blame for it, too. Pointing a finger never sounded as good as it does in “Upuan" (feat. Jeazell Grutas): Lumakas man ang ulan ay walang butas ang bubong / Mga plato't kutsara na hindi kilala ang tutong / At ang kanin ay simputi ng gatas na nasa kahon / At kahit na hindi pasko sa lamesa ay may hamon / Ang sarap sigurong manirahan sa bahay na ganyan / Sabi pa nila ay dito mo rin matatagpuan / Ang tao na nagmamay-ari ng isang upuan / Na pag may pagkakatao'y pinag-aagawan / Kaya naman hindi niya pinakakawalan / Kung makikita ko lamang siya ay aking sisigawan / While the truths that surround this lamentation against politicians is in your face, and oh so familiar, the use of the chair as central symbol of power is also one that bravely speaks of class divide and difference, something that very little of OPM even dares talk about, nay insist on. Which may be said as well for the rest of that album, and even more so for songs that were released as singles from it. Bakit ganito kababaw isang pagkaing nilangaw / Ang dadamputin at kakainin ng batang gutom / Alam ba ng mga husgado at lahat ng hukom / Na merong mas masahol pa sa hatol na kamatayan / Yan ay ika'y maging mahirap sa sarili mong bayan In “Balita" (feat. Gabby Alipe) Gloc-9 takes it a step farther and insists: poverty is death. At the same time, many of the songs in this album insist on a fight: not just against the political structure, but even more so against destiny that dictates poverty in all its forms. Dito sa amin kung s’an nanggaling / Mga makatang ulam at kanin / Lamang ang bayad pero pumapayag / Upang masubukan at mapatunayan… / Lagi mong tatandaan / Ganito lamang ang dapat na ginagawa mo / Huwag mong palalampasin ang pagkakataon / Kailangang pukpokin ang pako para bumaon That the struggle to be poet in this country is succinctly defined as tied to the basic needs of nourishment, that the latter is hard to come by, is what gets to me about these lines from the song “Martilyo" (feat. Letterday Story). That it uses the hammer as symbol not in itself, but in terms of its possibilities -- to brave the current, try things out, see things through, drive that nail in -- makes it strangely enough a feel-good song. At least by Gloc-9 standards. The storytelling continues, this kind of creative impetus that’s tied to the conditions of nation, in his 2011 album Talumpati. “Walang Natira" (feat. Sheng Belmonte) speaks of the industry that is our export of our own people as overseas Filipino workers; it speaks of it as crisis where nothing is left for nation, as it does speak of it as industry where bodies and lives are seen as products, and are necessarily sacrificed. And there’s plenty more in this album about Gloc-9’s view of this world we live in, alongside a more concrete sense of what he thinks of himself as rapper, and the role he plays in this context. It’s easy to think that he is being a rebel, that this is nothing but yabang which the form of rap allows; except that it is with cause and is within reason. It also might be the best Pinoy pop poetry that’s out there. The truth is the only ones who won’t want to deal with Gloc-9’s songs are the ones who’d rather view this world through rose-colored glasses. They’d be missing the point. Glasses off, please If there’s one thing that’s clear here it’s that Gloc-9 demands an amount of maturity, and an even greater amount of self-reflexivity, from his audience. You’d take offense only if he was pointedly talking to you; you’d also know that offense to be your problem if you were mature enough to see it. Transformation is always the goal of any cultural production that questions and critiques current notion(s) of normalcy and systems of oppression. Transformation seems more productive than just refusing to listen to the rest of what Gloc-9 has to say. Because he’s got plenty more to say. On that rainy Friday evening, in the midst of heavy traffic, and the possibility of his meeting with Manny Pacquiao, Gloc-9 talks about stories of nation, within and beyond it, ones that are in his songs. He didn’t think another album after Matrikula was possible, but found that he could top it with Talumpati. He surmises that he will not get old doing this, unlike FrancisM who was rapping and fighting until the end. I’d believe him, except that I’ve got his last two albums practically memorized. I’d believe him, except that it seems to me like that tight creative circle of musical arranger and video director is also about friendships that fuel his own creativity. I’d believe him, really, except that I don’t. Because Gloc-9’s is the kind of OPM that thrives in his context, and this particularly Pinoy context is always pregnant with stories, if not bursting at the seams with it. It’s not that there will always be this nation’s poverties to talk about, as there will always be its possibilities of change. It’s not that there will always be the powerless, as there will always be the powerful. Not that there is oppression, as it is the fact that there is the fight for freedom. Gloc-9 writes about us in a way that is so real and stark, it can also only be painfully about the truths we live by. The goal of course is to live against it, and to know enough to fight the battles that are worth it. That can easily and simply begin by telling the stories of nation that remain untold, within the industry that is Pinoy music, and the cultural industry that has been in a slump of romanticism and displacement in the face of globalization. So take off those rose-colored glasses, stop insisting on the happy, begin facing the struggles of our lives, fight for the silenced. Right there, you will see yourself living in nation. As Gloc-9 does. – HS, GMA News