Happy Filipino Fridays Fam! We're back with another episode featuring emerging musical artist, Babylon the Babel (also known as Jarnel Gamalinda). We chat with Jarnel about the journey into learning more about his Filipino heritage. Just like many of us whose lives were disrupted by the pandemic, we entered the state of deep reflection into our cultural identity. Many of us started the journey of being in touch with our Filipino roots, putting in the work to learn more about who we are. As Jarnel shares with us - the journey can be lonely, isolating even...especially when we may have first rejected or neglected the "Filipino" part of who we are. In the process of creating his album, Jarnel was inspired by how the stories of our ancestors has survived through time - from the legendary story of Lapu-Lapu to our mythology and folklore with the tales of the Bakunawa, and our very own "pimp" mythical creature, the Kapre (listen more for that hilarious context). He takes us through the process of answering the ancestral calling by expressing himself in different mediums of art while simultaneously diving deeper into the study of his culture.

We discuss the next generation expressing their culture in the aim to see more Filipino representation. He takes us through the most transformative part of his cultural and musical journey so far, as well as shares what it was like growing up as a kid with the Filipino parents in the Navy. Relate much? Make sure to catch his music on all streaming platforms!



"The deepest truth that one could really come to know is the sense of who they are. Part of that journey is discovering who you are as a Filipino - We're in this together, we're probably all at different stages of learning about who we are in our cultural identity, but that doesn't mean one is more Filipino than the other - "there's no such thing as less or more Filipino".



Follow Filipino Fridays Podcast on Instagram: @FilipinoFridaysPodcast / Email us at contact@filipinofridays.com / Music: Hot Coffee by Patrick Patrikios