OFW in Dubai levels up from porter to rapper running a popular club

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – This city is where you can be what you want, provided you stay the course. 

Take it from Anthony Noche, a homegrown rapper in the Philippines who flew here bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in 2012 aspiring to live la dolce vita.

But Dubai played hard to get and everything did not go well for the then 20-some-year-old guy from San Mateo, Rizal, who instead survived in between jobs, even sleeping on the floor, until he finally saw things for the same time and got back to where he started: doing rap music, this time, at a place in the city where he is now master of his domain.

Noche, a graduate of criminology and trainer of military reservists at Camp Aguinaldo in the Philippines before he flew in on a visit visa in 2012, got his first job making a paltry AED800 a month as an airline porter.

Woes

“It took me six months to land a job,” Noche, now 39, tells GMA News Online in a mix of English and the vernacular. He would quit six months later over a disagreement with his supervisor, after which he got another job, albeit a year after, as a shoe sales rep. 

But he also gave it up. “I did not renew my two-year contract upon its expiration because I realized management was promoting employees, whom I have trained, and leaving me out instead,” Noche said.

Noche, who had been into rap even before he left the Philippines, at this point put up a small home studio where he began making music. He would also emcee at bars and perform, doing AED500 a gig, until two years later when he was hired to be part of the opening team as marketing manager at a restaurant in Deira, a Filipino enclave in the northern part of Dubai.
 
But he was again out of job six months later. “They (management) decided to terminate my employment because by that time, the restaurant was already doing good,” Noche claimed.

 

Restaurant projects

It was the first of five restaurant projects Noche got involved in; all unfortunately did not take off.
 
The second opened also in Deira months later. “They (employers) used my concept then threw me out,” Noche said.

He later on found a businessman, who took him on board and gave him free hand to operate a dining venue. This also did not work out. 

By 2016, Noche was on his fifth restaurant project. It would have been promising except that “the owner had not been giving me my salary for three (consecutive) months,” he said. Again, he quit.

The COVID-19 pandemic came. Noche went back to the Philippines. He returned after Dubai reopened, and started all over again, at first staying at a friend’s place. 

Starting over

“The floor was my bed for about a month. I decided to sell things online so that I could provide for my expenses. I also worked as a hotel cleaner then was finally hired as producer helper at Expo 2020 Dubai,” he narrated, lamenting how he ended up carrying equipment and tripods like how he was moving luggage at the airport during his first job in 2012. 

“Kargador na naman (porter again),” he said.

One would have thought it has all been an exercise in futility. But Noche looked the other way. He saved his money and went back to the last restaurant he opened.

“I decided to put all my chips in this restaurant,” Noche said.

Finally, on May 29 this year, a club was born, complete with a DJ stand, dancing laser lights and a bar, to become Deira’s latest, after hours go-to-place with about 19,000 followers on Facebook and more than 5,400 YouTube subscribers as of last count.

Community support

“With help from the Filipino group of business people, we decided to make this officially a big club. I know struggle will always be there. But we owe its success to the Filipino community, which has always been supporting us,” Noche said. 

Noche also got to have his life back as a rapper, DJ and emcee, performing as “Makavely,” founder of a Dubai Pinoy hip-hop group, “Disciple of Culture,” which has a decent 5,500 followers on Facebook, and counting.

Having, for more than a decade, had a sampling of life as a Filipino working abroad, Noche, who recently celebrated his birthday party at the club, drew inspirations for his songs from the experiences he has gone through.

“My songs are about the lives of OFWs,” he said. 

And for his fellow overseas Filipinos, Noche said: “Walang imposible, basta kinikilusan. Mata sa langit, paa sa lupa (nothing is impossible so long as you work for it. Eyes in the sky, feet on the ground).” —KBK, GMA Integrated News