Rap in another language

One of the personalities I follow on Facebook, Sara Xie, appears in a music video, a rap song in Filipino by K-Ram. I often chat with Sara because she also livestreams in addition to being a model, and during the game sessions she chats with her viewers. The conversations are, hi, good evening, or you’re so pretty, but she says hello and thank you, shout out! It’s a thrill to hear her say my name. Anyway Bakit Ako is pretty good, the language is clean, the rhymes come easy, and there’s melody in the refrain. It strikes me that Filipino is way better suited for rapping than English. It flows better, it is not stilted like many English rap songs, and the syntax is simple so that context determines a lot of the meaning, a principle that lends itself to sparse text rather than the more explicit English.

Philippine rappers are a lot like Anees (Sun and Moon) in that their rap is already half singing rather than spoken, smoother and less ragged than Eminem. Themes are about love rather than aggression.

Tagalog really only has one expletive, “your mom’s a whore.” Resorting to expletives is the sign of a weak mind, as if you are such a dumbass you can’t get your idea across without saying “bitch.”

Do a Google search for Bakit Ako by K-Ram feat. Honcho!

James Constantino

South San Francisco