Amihan Redondiez's "For My Ancestors"

Photo by @nickel_word

Amihan Redondiez is a rising star from the SOMA Pilipinas community.

While she has been sharing her music mostly through live performances, she is currently working on the conceptualization and writing of her first recorded project.

As a second-generation Pinay who was born and raised in San Francisco, her Balay Kreative funded project will focus on her experiences and reflections of growing up within working class Filipinx immigrant communities in the city; specifically, in the South of Market and the Excelsior.

Though she has lived in the Excelsior all her life, the SOMA is really her first home. It is where she went to school from pre-k until graduating 8th grade, where she spent the first half of my life; so it is really this community that played a huge role in how she understands her Filipinx identity today. It wasn't until she found myself in other spaces that she realized how lucky she was to grow up surrounded by her own culture and own people while here in the US.

Additionally, as a cultural worker and activist with Anakbayan--a youth and student organization fighting for the liberation of our people in the homeland and the diaspora--she will also connect our local struggles for social justice to the movement for national sovereignty in the Philippines.

"For My Ancestors" is an album of 8-10 tracks long including elements of hip hop, r&b, traditional Filipinx instruments, as well as spoken word, written by Redondiez, and produced in collaboration with community-based artists.

This project is dedicated to her family and larger community; it is an oral history of our migration stories, narratives of displacement, as well as stories of coming together as a Filipinx community diverse with individuals of all generations, genders and class backgrounds. As an organizer with Anakbayan Davis, a youth and student organization fighting for the liberation of our people in the homeland and the diaspora--this project is dedicated to connecting our local struggles for social justice to the movement for national sovereignty in the Philippines. This project is essential to preserving the culture of the city that our Filipinx community has greatly contributed to, as well as our Philippine history that has placed us in SF.