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Gapo Disco: 1950 to the Future
By Bomba Brown
R.I.P to Ricardo Duero Tolentino September 05, 1950 – May 24, 2014.
This soundscape is an ode to where I come from and where I’m going.
My name is Angelica Janabajal Tolentino and I also go by Babay L. Angles and Bomba Brown. My most immediate family states that we are from Olongapo. I have been doing the work to dig deeper into where I am from. I am also from Marinduque, Cavite, Dinalupihan, and Pampanga. However, Olongapo has been a formative part of my family’s story.
Olongapo was the bridge, the place that my family travelled to for their freedom dreams.
The place where my pops, a black belt in Shotokan, filmed karate films with friends and got into it in all the different discotechs..
Uncle Robert in biker crews cruised down the winding beach side roads, still does :)
Aunties worked at the NEX or sold cigarettes roadside.
And my grandma sold rice at the palenke with a mirror in one hand to remind herself she was fly.
Olongapo would eventually be the bridge where my pops would make the choice to trade his karate gi for a military uniform for a chance at those freedom dreams. He made his way to California in 1978.
Olongapo was/is a place of tension, struggle, militarism, etc for many. Yet navigating through this space of freedom and tension was an undercurrent of booming discotechs, movie theatres, strip clubs, and a rich history of funk music that I’m still learning.
I’m still learning and remembering how we know/knew how to hustle and how to sustain our joy through it all. We were/are INGENIOUS INNOVATIVE INCREDIBLE SHAPESHIFTING ADAPTABLE and ALIVE with RHYTHM BASS and PURE KILIG!
I’ve spent most of my life growing up in South East San Diego and National City, CA. Here we, as a sister city of Olongapo, are a literal echo of years of our dreams and struggles.
I have witnessed most of the struggles seen here through historical amnesia, gambling addictions, depression, heart disease, diabetes, and intergenerational trauma that rests in the silences between my mother, my father, my aunties, my uncles and I.
I often wonder, what happened to my family’s freedom dreams? What happened to their JOY?
I search for the evidence of their hearts and dreams in the music and in the karaoke they sing.
My pops didn’t express much emotion, hurt, or talk about the sacrifices he had to make in order to create space for me to dream today
He did love his music though and he sure loved to dance.
You’ll hear a mix of sounds I grew up to, from Sunday breakfast tunes, house cleaning songs, late night Cali garage karaoke sessions, truck rides with my pops while running errands, to sounds I’m just digging into finally today, decades later.
So, deep gratitude to these sounds and for our collective ingenuity.
My offering is a sound prayer for us, for our aunties, our uncles, moms, pops, lolas, lolos, for our hearts.
For our unexpressed wounds and most of all our freedom dreams. If you listen closely, it’s all there.
Here’s to digging and carrying these joy practices and gems to build worlds that have more disco, funk, cross cultural solidarity, lingo, laughter, glitter, glamour, and alllll the emotional vulnerability to heal forward back and to the future ! <3
My pops words: ”Let’s Rock and Roll!”
**also special thanks to Woostalila from Sunday’s Best. Thank you for holding ceremony and listening to tunes with me! My ancestors thank you too!