Music has been one of the many outlets of creativity and expression for the LGBTQ+ Community and recently we supposedly celebrated PRIDE month with music, a concert to celebrate the community last June 22, 2024, at the Quezon City Memorial Circle with a mix of artists that represents the LBGTQ+ and groups who are openly supportive of the community with artists like BINI, Denise Julia, Juan Karlos, Cup of Joe, GLOC9 and a group of known Drag Queens in the Philippines like Marina Summers, and many more artists that are supportive of the community. Even though the event had to stop due to the bad weather. This is a visible improvement in the growing support and openness to the LGBTQ+ community in our country.

With music, having more representation of the LGBTQ+ community as a musician is not as common as in the earlier years of music. It would always be straight and heteronormative musicians acting as a voice for the community inspired by their friends or family members’ experiences.

We have rapper GLOC9 with “Sirena”, shining a light on the issues and struggles the LGBTQ+ Community faced and will continue to face in the future. This was a very personal song for his son, who is part of the LGBTQ+ community as to why he is more than open to being part of the PRIDE concert in support of his son’s community.

Finally, now, we’re starting to have openly queer artists that debuted and released their music. Artists like Kio Priest who is openly gay, and Denise Julia who hinted that she is open to any gender and has written a song about her encounter with a woman who has made her feel a type of love and affection she never experienced before unlike with her other past relationships. We also have up-and-coming artist Geoff Mabasa, making his way back to the music scene to represent more for the community.

Geoff shared his journey in the music industry and how he struggled in writing music as someone who is part of the LGBTQ+ Community in his teenage years as a songwriter:

“Noong college (back in college), in our songwriting courses, I would write music addressed to a ‘her’, even though I had a boy in mind when I wrote these songs. It affected the way I wrote, I was always reserved, and I was afraid of slipping, that people might find out I’m singing songs for boys, I always felt like it would not help me professionally if I wanted people to listen to me. It was only very recently that I decided to revisit the songs I wrote back then and change everything from the perspective of a gay man liking another boy.. And even though right now I’ve decided to start again, I can say that I am much happier, prouder, and excited to hear people sing my songs, using the pronouns I prefer to use. People are easy to dismiss others with pronouns, but you don’t know how much these “small things” impact other people’s lives.”

Geoff also mentioned what he thinks about the representation of queer artists in the Filipino music scene has evolved over the years “The Filipino music scene is still in its early stages in representation but still more progressive than our neighbors, I know the Philippines is quite open with LGBTQ+ artists, however, I still feel like there’s an expectation to act a particular way when you’re an LGBT artist in this country”. Geoff points out that queer musicians are still a bit restricted when it comes to expressing themselves, but he’s pretty happy with the growth of queer OPM artists who are breaking through the music scene like himself and would love to see more in the future and would love to collaborate with a few artists in mind.

Geoff is releasing a song called “Paramdam” on July 26. The song already sounds like a classic, with themes of nostalgia that bring you back to a sound familiar during the 2010s. He calls “Paramdam” as an open love letter to that straight boy he used to crush on in college. “If you’re in a silly situationship with someone giving you mixed signals, or maybe just feeling like delulu is the solulu because you’re already wearing your heart on your sleeve for this crush, Paramdam is the perfect song to dedicate to this person.”

Adding to the excitement, Geoff mentions that he assembled a world-class team for the song, working with members of Southborder as well as one of the best young engineers in the country to brew his next opus, “Paramdam”.