An Ibanag Music Industry?
Jake Calubaquib Coballes
(Last updated August 30, 2023)
It is said that if a language has no domain of usage, this can add to its susceptibility to decline.
For decades, popular music has been thriving around the globe through media such as radio, tv, and also the internet just before the start of the new millennium. Music thrived and continues to thrive through the most basic form of preservation and timelessness — a record, be it a vinyl plaque, cassette tape, compact disk, or digital format in computers or smartphones. During these early decades of development of the music industries worldwide, the Ibanag language apparently had not left any mark in this domain.
Our constant research has led us to conclude that the Ibanag people, since time immemorial, are a people fond of music. This is evident in the pre-colonial terms for various native musical instruments like the gassa, gibbal, tulali, kuritang, and kuribaw, as well as chants such as the unini and dallu’, which were recorded in various colonial texts (this will be the focus of a future article). The colonial period saw the adoption of Western influences in music, which led to the birth of the religious songs and musical traditions such as the salomon, leksio, etc. More importantly, Western influences laid the foundation for the composition of numerous Ibanag folk songs that are remembered up to this day such as O Lappaw, Ayatat-taka, Tadday a Maginganay, and countless others. These songs, though are largely transmitted orally to succeeding generations, underwent a decline in usage as it seemed that they, and songwriting in general, never really transitioned to became a part of the local music industry in the middle of the 20th Century — songs were not recorded and released through mass media. Moreover, Ibanag composers or lyricists never really experienced a renaissance; otherwise, it seems nobody knows about it because there are so few composers of Ibanag language musical pieces today.
Nevertheless, and fortunately, the language did manage to find its way in the Filipino music industry especially in local scenes during the late 2000’s — original songs have started to get recorded and publicly released, finally exemplifying the saying, “better late than never”.
One of the first records that came out was Golpiadu Makimallo in 2008, which was performed by Grace Nono, a well-known artist throughout the country’s ethnic-fusion / world music scene (who is a non-Ibanag ironically). The song is based on a traditional Ibanag musical form called the verso/berso, the reference recording of which was done earlier in the field by fellow artist Edru Abraham of Kontragapi, a native of Tuguegarao. (Descriptions of the verso may be read in an academic paper, via this link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365128791_The_Verso_of_the_Ibanag_and_Itawit_Peoples_of_Cagayan_Valley)
The rest of the recordings from other artists, this time, ethnic Ibanag, were mostly released independently. Compact disks of recorded original Ibanag compositions reminiscent of the pop genre during the mid-20th Century, as well as covers of folk songs saw circulation in the local marketplaces in the late-2000s. Some of these records feature artists such as Renato Hipolito, who performed covers for modern pieces like Tuguegarao Geography as well as countless Ibanag folk songs. Records have also probably started to be given airtime in local radio stations during this time.
Local records around this period were mostly MIDI instrumentation mixed with vocals. This style was soon emulated (or joined in or perhaps even preceded) by various artists or DJs who continue to release new records of Ibanag songs, balses, and ballads under the pop music spectrum up to this day, mostly on online channels such as Youtube. A huge number of these independent “direct-to-internet” recordings and mixes come from Isabela-based artists.
In the mid to late 2010s, the Ibanag language had started to be used in full band recordings. Because full band artists also perform their songs live, their Ibanag songs were able to reach audiences through live shows, though a huge contribution to the records’ reach in audiences is through their release in online social media channels. An example of this is the reggae-fusion single Ju Ngana Pulis performed by the rock band called EMILYS around 2015.
Other examples of the use of Ibanag in rock music and rock-reggae fusion are from the Metro Manila-based grunge band called En Seguida, whose members are all from Tuguegarao. The band, though only active in Metro Manila from 2012 to 2015, managed to record and release a mini-album or extended play (EP) in 2020 entitled Motherland, where two of its tracks feature Ibanag lyrics — Si Ifan, and Lupa ng mga Mandirigma. Again, like most of the preceding Ibanag records, the EP was only released online.
In the realm of hip hop, the use of Ibanag in recorded material was seemingly pioneered by Pamplona-based rapper, Matt Mabbatung. Recording was again done independently with the tracks such as Toga, Labbetan na Aggaw, and Minakkalap released, yet again, through the most convenient medium of all — the internet. These singles were released specifically as DIY produced-music videos through Youtube, apparently the first MTVs that feature Ibanag lyrics.
In 2023, Tuguegarao young rap artists Emfire and 2G’s released a single entitled Oh! Sinni?, which is largely in Tagalog but also features an Ibanag chorus, and bits of codes switching including that of the Itawit language, another major language in the city.
Emerging professional singer and songwriter, Ruth Lee Resuello, who is based in Tuguegarao City, also incorporates Ibanag and other regional languages in a few of her recordings such as Padayon, Spotlight, and Regalo. Resuello is the founder of professional record label, Northern Root Records, and is presently the only music artist who uses Ibanag, who is consistent in terms of activeness. She also employs popular wide-reaching online streaming platforms such as Spotify to share and promote her material globally. This method, in turn, has a very significant potential in establishing a local music industry that promotes the use of the Ibanag language, hence its protection from declining vitality in the digital age.
In 2023, she started to expand her musical collaborations with artists based abroad in producing material that feature the Ibanag language. The EDM-pop single, Makwa tam Ngamin, performed with Canada-based, Tuguegarao-born artist, Niya, was released in September of the same year.
There are potentially other lesser known Ibanag song recordings under all kinds of genres that were released in recent history, though most seem to lack one thing, and that is proper promotion.
The spark in the Ibanag language’s usage in a domain such as popular music can be seen as a sign that the language is going on a path different from where it was before. Hopefully, this path will continue to develop so that an identifiable Ibanag music scene or industry may be established in the Ibanag heartlands.
Many Ibanag today feel that their language is threatened due to its non-transmittal across generations, which can be well attributed to both diminishing prestige in Ibanag territories, and utilitarian purposes within the local education system. As the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education may support Ibanag’s presence within the education system, perhaps the continual composition, more importantly, recording and immortalizing of Ibanag songs may be a factor in restoring some of the language’s lost prestige. Then, perhaps someday, speakers themselves will no longer consider the language as “dying”. (JKC)
