My name is Nastia Voynovskaya and I am an editor and reporter from the KQED Arts and Culture team.

And it, it's thanks to the support of all of you that we get to tell the stories of the brilliant artists shaping the Bay Area.

And the person we're going to hear from today is a voice we need right now.

She raps in three languages about her immigrant experience and the power of Filipino women.

She's the winner of the 2025 Tiny Desk Contest.

And she's also the co-founder of independent Bay Area record label Bolo Music Group.

Put your hands together for Ruby Ibarra.

Hi Ruby.

Hi everybody.

Happy Saturday.

Ruby, I wanted to start our conversation with your latest single "Bakunawa".

And this is a track where your lyrics are really inspired by Filipino folklore and the story of this moon eating dragon.

Can you tell us a bit about that story and what you were trying to say with that metaphor?

Thank you for opening that up with my most recent song which still means a whole lot to me.

You know, it's taken me to places all over the world over the past year because of that song.

And where it originated from was my growing interest in mythology in general.

I think it was the middle of 2021.

I, I was spending a lot of time at home and trying to kind of dive more beyond Philippine history, but also reading more into Philippine literature.

And I came across you know, a lot of, a lot of these mythological stories and the Bakunawa was one of them.

And to your point it being a moon eating dragon, this mythological creature.

And I think what really drew me to the Bakunawa in particular was that it just seemed like this powerful beast.

And it was a powerful being but was banished because of its, its power, because of what it could do because of its capacity and the possibilities.

And I think I understood that as kind of a metaphor for oftentimes how marginalized people are, are made to fee.

And I equated that too with a lot of my experiences growing up.

To me, my, one of the superpowers I feel like I've always had growing up was the fact that I was bilingual, that I could speak Tagalog, I could speak what I a few Filipino languages.

And but, but yet you know, growing up in public school or, or even out in public spaces there would be moments where I would be told to, you know, not, not say it out loud or to speak English instead.

And I think it's moments like that, that I was like, wait a minute, a lot of my experiences growing up, my personal experiences felt a lot like it was tied to the story of, of this Bakunawa.

And so I wanted to flip the, this story of this creature who vanished and to kind of instead look at it in a way where, you know, this instead is, is a powerful creature that is told to not showcase itself, it's told to kind of shrink itself and to combat that narrative and to show people that you know, it's okay for us to tap into that Bakunawa or that, that power that we feel within ourselves that we're often told to hide.

And I think I was also in a very reflective state at the time.

I, I was pregnant with my, my daughter who's now actually today she's, she turned 18 months.

So it's been 18 months since I wrote that song and you know, back or more than 18 months, but when I was writing that song I was in a, a real mode of reflection of, you know, what, what kind of music do I want to make from this point out?

What, what kind of stories do I want to make sure that is, it's embedded in the lyrics?

Because I knew that one day my daughter would be listening, you know, to the music that I release.

And so you know, this story was for me a very perfect starting point because it, it was also not only a metaphor for me, but I, I felt like it was a message that I want to share with my daughter now and as she gets older of you know, to find that inner power that she has within herself and not be afraid to express it, not be afraid to showcase it and, and to embrace it.

And I think you really embody that inner power when you performed Bakunawa at the Tiny Desk.

And we have a clip of that so can we roll the clip?

Listen, Maria, come on into one.

We are brewing one of you like a red celeb white, that's the blue.

Blue like the moon, like the eyes and the bruise.

Howl at the moon watch a bloom when I roll.

Brown like the brown boo brutes.

Brown like the womb like a pool of the movement.

Bow to my boom because it looms like the.

Yeah, I love that performance.

Everyone definitely go watch the whole thing on YouTube if you haven't seen it yet.

But yeah, as we saw in that video when you got this big moment to perform at Tiny Desk, you brought your whole community with you.

And can you tell us more about the amazing Pinay musicians in your band?

Yeah, I was during the, like while that clip was playing, I had turned to Nastia, I was like, "Look at my drummer.

She has a stink face on. "

And they're, they're such incredible musicians.

Everyone that you saw on that screen are all folks that I've built community with over the last decade that I've, I've been doing music more professionally.

And the featured vocalists that are on that song namely June Millington and Wida are two incredible artists.

Wida being a singer-songwriter from here in San Francisco, born and raised.

And June Millington, for the folks who don't know, she is a legendary rock star.

She's a guitarist and vocalist from this group from the 1970s.

All women band called Fanny.

And I had the, the privilege to connect with her over the last, the course of last six years.

And she is su - just such an inspiration to me because one, you know, the fact that she's a woman who is still rocking it out to this day.

I believe she just turned 79 years old this year and she is definitely a warrior.

And so when I was writing the lyrics to Bakunawa I, outside of my rap verse, I, I also had written the, the, the singing verses and the chorus as well, like pretty much within an evening.

It was one of the, the fastest songs I've ever written in my entire career.

And when I was writing June's part, for example, she was already the vocalist that came to mind for me.

And those lyrics that you hear her sing on that song specifically tailored and written for her, knowing her experience as, as being a woman in rock music as, as being a, a Filipina who grew up as a first generation here in the States during the 1960s.

And also just being this, again, a fierce warrior you know, part of the... One, one of the many ways that I, you know, I respect and I admire her so much is she's also a cancer survivor.

And knowing that it's deeply you know, touching for me too, because my mom as well is a, is a cancer survivor.

And so when I see women like June or my mother, I'm like, "These are such strong, powerful women."

And so again, I, when I was you know, composing Bakunawa, not just the lyrics, but also the vocalists the melodies and the people who were involved, I wanted it all to be very intentional and I felt like June was all, to me, the ultimate representation of what the Bakunawa is and what it means.

Yeah.

And so like you mentioned, June Millington was the singer of Fanny and they made history as I believe the first all woman band to be signed to a major label.

And also one of the earliest Filipino fronted rock bands.

But did you ever listen to Fanny growing up or how did you hear about them and decide to invite her to collaborate?

I wish I had grown up listening to Fanny.

I think I would've found myself a lot more courageous as a teenager and as a kid growing up.

It wasn't actually until around 2020 that I kind of quote unquote discovered who Fanny was.

And it was because they were creating a documentary.

And the, the funny part is that documentary was kind of the purpose of it was to answer the question of who is Fanny and how come more people don't know them or more people don't remember them?

And I think for, for them being women that were pioneers not just within rock music, but in, in just music in general you know, we often see artists like these who are on the, the pioneering front lines that often don't get remembered or their story gets untold.

And we kind of see like the, the seeds that blossom after their impact and their work.

And so for me when they had asked me if I wanted to also appear in the, the Fanny documentary, it was a no-brainer for me because I was like, "Oh my God, this is going to be a chance for me to meet June."

So you know, I, I busted my butt there and I made sure that I, I got to meet June and Jean who's her sister, who's also Filipina, and Brie who's the, the third Filipina in the group.

And they were just as powerful offstage as they were on stage.

Three incredible women who are still doing their thing in music.

And you know, to that point too is also a reminder for me that just because, you know, you, you're a touring performer or a songwriter who, who does this for multiple years, that there is no expiration date to this.

And that's exactly what someone like June is showing me to this day is, especially for women.

And I think oftentimes still in society we're told that you can only do, especially in the creative arts, that you can only do it for X amount of years.

And you know, she's, she's giving a big middle finger to that and it's definitely showing us that, you know, well into your 70s, you can still rock out on stage.

And she was on tour with us last year after we won the Tiny Desk and she was on every single stop, all 10 cities and rocked it out with us every single night.

That's so inspiring.

Yeah.

And I mean, even in our generation, there's so much sexism in the music industry, so I can only imagine what it was like for her in the '70s and the barriers she had to break through.

But yeah, tell us about just the importance of those kinds of intergenerational collaborations and maybe the kinds of dialogues you're having with June behind the scenes.

Yeah, the intergenerational collaboration to me is particularly important.

You know, on one hand, you learn as an artist you know, from folks like June who, who've been doing this for decades.

And so when we were on tour, for example, there were so many moments where I would be sitting or I'd be standing and she'd be to my left and I just glance over and there's so many cues and to her performance that I paid close attention to and I made sure to take notes.

And things I just continue to learn along the way.

But more so off stage.

I think the conversations that we had offstage was where I learned even more and why it was more impactful and to the fact that, you know, why we should be collaborating intergenerationally because we're building community and we're make ensuring that you know, music from the, the era from before until now, that we're finding the connectedness between them.

And they're not, and it's also a reminder that they're not separate things.

Just because, you know, music was released in the '70s or an artist was prevalent in the '70s.

It doesn't mean at all that there's no space for that now.

If anything, we should be celebrating it because it's the history that's led us to this point for, for a lot of the things to happen.

And you know, that's exactly how I feel about Fanny.

I think if it wasn't for artists like Fanny who knocked down those doors women like myself it would be even more challenging for us to get on the stages that we do now.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so much of your lyricism pays homage to Filipina matriarchs and even your own mom.

By the way, can we get a round of applause for immigrant moms?

It's Mother's Day weekend.

Happy Mother's Day weekend.

Yes.

But why is it so important for you to tell your mom's story and your lyrics and the lyrics and the stories of other women?

It's so important for me because I grew up having a lot, having a very close relationship with my mother.

I don't know for, for the folks out there who are particularly close to their moms, but for me it was, it was those afternoons after school where she just like sit me down and whether or not I asked about it, but now I, I'm glad that she, she did it anyways.

There, there's so many stories that were amazing detailed stories that she told me about her life in the Philippines and the experiences that she had.

And let me just say, like, none of these stories that my mom ever shared come even close to, you know, the, the movies that I see portrayed.

Like none of the movies I've ever seen or television I've ever seen have an ounce of the stories that, that my mom have, has told me.

And so, you know, knowing that it's like, who's, who's going to tell these beautiful, amazing stories?

Are they just going to continue to get untold?

Are they only going to be privately shared within a household or even within just a community at, if at that?

And I think when, when I though about that some more this was before I had released my first album.

I, I came to the conclusion that if, if someone's going to tell my mom's stories that it's definitely, you know, going to come from me, it's going to come from my family.

And that's why I'm so adamant that it's important for us to, to be the ones to own our stories and our narratives and to be the one, ones to, to share it and, and birth it out into the world.

And, you know, again, when I, when I think about my mom, like she's, she's smaller than me.

She's like this small lady, but she's even bigger than life.

And she, she is an incredible person and you know, I, I think like if she doesn't have, she doesn't have the opportunity to have a microphone in her hand like I do.

And so I, I take this as, as an opportunity and a privilege to be able to basically be that extension of a microphone for my mother.

And that's what I try to do in my music is I, I try to incorporate a lot of those stories that she shared with me when I was younger and to highlight that in, in, in the songs that I make.

And ultimately I think that's why that's what makes my music unique because I know that, you know, these are personal reflections and personal stories that have been shared with me.

And when, when my mom gets a chance to hear them too, it's just, it's the most amazing thing for me.

For, for the folks who, who haven't heard my first album, there's several skits on there that actually features my mom's vocals in between some tracks.

And just to even have that experience of bringing her into the studio and having her act out those certain skits to kind of relive my childhood.

I, I saw how much it empowered her to be able to record her voice on wax on record and to hear it back.

Because for someone like my mom, I think not only the fact that you know, she doesn't really see the possibility of being able to share her story with the world, but to hear herself afterwards kind of memorialized was, was such an amazing experience.

And I think that's the best way as an artist for me that I can honor my mother.

Yeah, that must have been healing as a family too, to go back over those childhood experiences where like you can hear her as an immigrant mother, you know, like doing her best to set you up for success.

The first, the first skit on the album, I was like, remember back in the times when I was five years old and you told, you would, you'd yell at me and you'd tell me to run back into the house because I might get darker.

And then she, she got into the studio and she, she kind of did her thing.

And I was like, no, I remember there was a lot more power behind that voice.

So by the end of like the 30 minutes, I was like, okay, I'm, I'm feeling the trauma again.

Yeah, hopefully processed through, through a new lens now.

You have a song on CIRCA91 called Us that's really powerful and it's featuring Klassy, Rocky Rivera and Faith Santilla.

And this is one of your biggest tracks from that album.

It has over a million views on YouTube.

And I heard you say in another interview that every year you get tagged in graduation photos of young Filipino college students who write the lyrics on their caps.

But tell us a bit about that track and why it continues to resonate with audiences.

Yeah.

The "Us" song is one of my favorite tracks that I've, I've been, had the privilege to, to be a part of.

And big shout out to Rocky Rivera who's from San Francisco and Klassy and Faith Santilla who are also on the track.

To me it was, it was very important that I reserved space on the CIRCA91 album that just had women voices on it.

The fact being that growing up as a Filipino, it's often, often a very, a very patriarchal household, oftentimes a very patriarchal culture.

And you know, to have a track that is completely opposite of that where you just hear female voices back to back each very unique each different in their perspective and their story to me also helps showcase kind of the breadth and the, the beauty of the different perspectives of what, what it is to, to be a Filipina in these times.

And yeah, that, that was an important collaboration also because of the fact that we, were able to make an incredible music video out of it where we actually filmed it out here in San Francisco in, in Balboa High.

And it was such an amazing experience.

When I think about that date that we filmed that music video like more than, I think nearly 300 young Filipinas, you know, showed up because they all wanted to appear in the video.

And to this day, whether it's folks that were part of the video or people who have watched the music video after I, you know, I, I, like, like you said there, there are people that come up to me to this day and they either have it highlighted on their graduation caps.

So they'll write the lyrics to the song on their graduation caps.

Or I, I've even seen like last year someone had the lyrics tattooed on their arm and I, I was like, "Oh my gosh, that, that, that's hard, that's hardcore."

And I think I have to sometimes take a step back and not be able, and be able to wrap my head around like why would someone, like how could someone do this?

Like it's, it's forever, it's permanent.

And it, it just reminds me that you know, the work that we do sometimes as artists, as writers, as journalists it's, it's bigger than ourselves.

I think for me as a songwriter, when I go into the booth and you know, I put my reflection and my story down it, it feels a bit self-serving because you know, it's an expression and I feel, I feel better after I get to write and after I get to express myself.

But when I put it out into the world, I think that's when you know, I, I, I realized that it, again, the music is bigger than myself.

That especially when it's a story that speaks to a community which is what "Us" ultimately became.

And you know, I'm forever grateful for that collaboration and forever grateful for the amazing people that I've met since we've released that music.

And to me, it's also serves as a reminder that you know, when, when music speaks to us, when music is that powerful to, to feel like it's also our narrative that's when it, you know, words are really impactful.

And that's what I hope to continue to, to do as, as I, as I release more songs is I, I want to make sure that I'm intentional about the, what I say on a microphone and that it's not just speaking for myself, but also speaking for people who feel like they don't have a voice.

Right.

Yeah, no, and it's, it's so deeply validating to have your experience reflected like that.

And we have a clip from Ruby's music video for "Us", so let's watch the video.

And that song and your first album, CIRCA91, were released through Beat Rock Music, which is an independent hip-hop label led by the rapper Bambu.

And Bambu and his partner, Rocky Rivera, who's also featured on that song, they're a Bay Area power couple.

They're deeply political.

They also rep their Filipino roots pretty hard.

But tell us about your Beat Rock family and how they've supported your journey as an artist.

I love Beat Rock so much.

And again, big, big shout out and all the love to Bambu and Rocky Rivera.

Bambu for me is, has been one of my inspirations as, as an artist.

Just even, you know, beyond Filipino culture, but just being an MC.

I remember when I first came across his music when I was in high school he was, he used to be part of this rap duo called Native Guns.

And Kiwi's also from Oakland, from the Bay.

When I, when I came across that, their music for the first time, I, I just was just completely dumbfounded and completely mind-blown.

And I was like, "Oh my God, where has this been my whole life?

How come I haven't heard more Filipino perspectives within music, within poetry, within hip hop?"

And it was just so empowering for me to hear voices that spoke about stories that resonated with me deeply culturally, but also in terms of history and allowed me to kind of open up my eyes and my thoughts to what is, you know, Filipino American history and what is Filipino American culture.

And I, I was very fortunate to have developed a, a friendship with Bam and Rocky over the last couple years.

And it was actually Rocky who had told the Beat Rock the folks at Beat Rock to sign me and, and to do a project with Beat, through Beat Rock.

So I definitely owe a lot to Rocky and, and Bam for just setting up the stage for me and, and giving me that opportunity and swinging it wide open.

I think as, as an artist here in the Bay I mean, right now in 2026, it's such a pivotal moment, I, I believe.

It's such an exciting and a beautiful time right now because we see kind of this resurgence of Bay Area culture and music, especially at the forefront.

Like there's a lot of artists that are homegrown that are still also living here that are, are pushing Bay Area culture on a global scale.

But again I, I feel like this is particularly a, a bit more recent.

And I think over, you know, the last previous decades Beat Rock has definitely been one of those kind of collectives for me that have been very proud of representing both the Bay Area and Los Angeles.

And to have been able to collaborate with them and join their community of artists was still is a huge privilege for me because the artists on the Beat Rock label are all very much uncensored and you know, very artist driven, artists forward community-based.

And that's what I, I love about the work and the catalog that they do is that they make sure that the artist is front and center and that the artist's voice and story is, is really, you know, at, at the epicenter of, of the work that they do.

And that's, that's first and foremost, that's the most important thing in, in their catalog.

And for someone who grew up, again, listening to a lot of their music when they reached out to me and, and they asked me if I wanted to drop an album on Beat Rock I, I was, I was scared at first, but I was so excited.

I think I was scared and nervous at the fact of like, "What the hell am I going to say?

Like, how can I add to the, their beautiful catalog that they already have? "

And I think a conversation that I had with Bam back in, Bambu back in 2016 was like, "How do you approach songwriting?

How do you make, you know, your, your dis - how did, how did you build such a powerful discography of music?"

And as simple as this response was which was just speak from your, speak as yourself I think I took that as a, as a homework and I really thought about it.

What, what does it mean for me to speak for myself?

And that's why CIRCA91 came to be the record that it was and why it's so personal and why every, like, even the skits that are on the album outside of the music are all lived experiences that I've had.

And that's exactly what I did and I followed Bambu's advice.

And again, please check out Beat Rock Music's amazing catalog if y'all haven't yet.

There's so many amazing songwriters and, and poets on that label.

Truly.

And as you're focused on your own artistry, you've also started your own independent label, Bolo Music Group.

So can you tell us about how that came to be and, and what's the latest with that?

Yeah, It was Bolo is obviously inspired by movements like Beat Rock by, by movements like what Hieroglyphics and Souls of Mischief has, has done is like they've built collectives of artists and musicians.

And I think instead of kind of labeling it as a record label, it really has more so grown as a community and that's what we're trying to build also within Bolo Music Group.

And for me, Bolo has been a conversation that I've had with my longtime collaborator who's also oftentimes the bass player in my band Angelo Macaraeg.

For, for the both of us, we, you know, when, when we were on tour over the last couple years we've had these side conversations of where do we want to see Filipino American music go?

How is Filipino American music being shaped today?

And when we started kind of throwing these questions to each other and realizing that we were very passionate and excited about our answers and the possibilities of what could be I think that's where we kind of narrowed down like, okay, this is, this is the direction that I think our next collaboration or our quote unquote project can be, which is to build this collective called Bolo Music Group.

And the start of it I think was our hopes to be able to change and restructure what a record label looks like and how it operates.

Because even to this day, and you know, when we think about especially major record labels it, it really isn't artist friendly at all and favorable, you know, to, to the songwriters.

And oftentimes we hear over and over again how much you know, again, it's very unfair business practices.

And so that part of kind of the, the whole record label structure is what we've wanted to change you know, from the, from the beginning of building Bolo.

And so when we took on artists like Weda, who's on the Bakunawa song, and Ian Santaliano, who's from Hayward and Vince A, who's from the South Bay you know, we, we really sat out to create these bodies of work with these three amazing musicians, but also again, restructure what it means to be a record label and making sure that it's artist friendly it's artist forward and that the, the music that we release, the artist's voice is central and you know exactly so that every music that comes out, you know exactly who this artist is, where they come from and what their story is.

And ultimately what we, we've also wanted to empower the creatives in our community I think even though we are still again in an exciting time right now in the Bay Area, a lot of the work that we do as creatives is still very much siloed and we're kind of in our own lane and we kind of have to start from the ground up.

I know for me in my career, it often felt like I was going up an escalator that was coming down that every, every step had to be you know, strategic, every step had to be methodical, but if, if I lost momentum, I would find myself of having to rebuild it all over again.

And I thought to myself, well that's not sustainable at all.

Like how can an artist thrive if that's, you know, how, how we often feel that we need to keep building and building and building but on our own?

So with Bolo beyond it being a record label we're also now kind of shifting gears and more so building an ecosystem of, of creatives and artists so that artists don't have to rebuild or build from the ground up when they start their careers, but more so that a door is already open and resources are available and artists can just go out and do what they should be doing which is writing and recording music and performing.

And so where we're at now with Bolo that I'm very excited about is we're, we're creating projects with people outside of, of Bolo as well.

And we're taking on a lot of very fun and exciting creative media that we're going to be sharing soon.

And again I think what I'm most happy about with this project ultimately is the fact that we get to create this network and build this community of creatives, which I think should, should be popping up more in the Bay, especially now that there's a lot of eyes on the Bay Area there needs to be more resources for the artists to actually thrive here.

Right so they don't have to move away.

Yeah, no, it's so important.

I want to hear a little bit about your early beginnings.

So you grew up in San Lorenzo in the East Bay.

And I think your music captures so beautifully just the experience of being first generation and growing up between two cultures and finding who you are.

And I want to know how did hip hop shape your early identity and your, your ability to navigate all these different cultural layers?

Hip hop shaped a lot of, a lot of things for me.

Especially as a young immigrant kid who didn't, who didn't really know the language when I first moved here to California.

And also kind of just thrown into like figuring out what is the culture here?

How do I navigate this new country?

Hip hop was one of those things for me and served as a soundtrack, but also served as a lot of the, the rappers that I, I listened to growing up, like whether it was Tupac or Lauryn Hill, to me, these were my teachers outside of school.

They taught me what it was to navigate through life, to navigate, especially someone like Lauryn Hill, to navigate through my experiences as a woman.

And I found like hip hop, even now with the work that I personally do, like hip hop is such a great way to communicate it to communicate your story, but also is a lot more digestible I think for the younger generation to be able to you know, learn a lot of these nuances, whether it's nuances within identity or within culture or within your own femininity and how you express it.

And you know, these are the different things that, and values that I've learned just from listening to, to my favorite MCs.

And for me too, when, when I think about the, the work that I specifically do as an MC there's, there's no, there's no creative outlet that I can ever compare hip hop with that feels just as empowering, that feels just as liberating that feels just as expressive as, as hip hop is.

Because you know, when, when you break it down, I mean, technically it, it's poetry over music and with, with me being able to you know, be 100% myself and authent- authentically be myself in the poetry that I write and to have that against the, the mu - the music that, you know, my, I play with my band or the production that I, we create in the studio, it really helps bring the stories to life.

And I, I think, you know, to me, to this day, hip hop is one of those things where it's just, it's a powerful medium and there's, there's really no feeling like it of having a microphone in your hand and, and an audience to connect with.

Did you always know that you wanted to do music full-time?

Because I know before you started doing this as your career, you had a whole other era as a vaccine researcher, which I'm sure a lot of people would be surprised to learn about.

So what was that journey about?

What was that journey of taking your passion and making it your full-time job?

That was, that was a long a long journey for me.

So for the folks that don't know, five years ago, we were just actually talking about this backstage five years ago.

It's only been five years that I've been a full-time artist, but prior to that I used to be a scientist.

I used to work in biotech and I went to UC Davis and I, I studied biochemistry and molecular biology.

Because at the time I thought I was, I was going to be pre-med.

And so I remember being a college student and then something was just always constantly like pulling me to the side and like reminding me that, oh, music is your passion.

And you know, I, I would... It was funny sometimes I would leave like my physics lab late on campus and I'd go straight to the open mic or lounge on campus.

And you know, this kind of, this kind of pattern followed me throughout the years up until five years ago.

And to your question, to answer your question what led me to finally pursue music full-time, it was a lot of like I tell people all the time it felt like one foot in, one foot out.

I think why it took me so long to just fully dive into music was it's a lot of uncertainty on my end in terms of imposter, I think feeling imposter syndrome, feeling like I wasn't good enough, doubting myself.

And I think I had to constantly remind myself, well, what it, what is it that you want to do, Ruby?

What is it that you want to do when you wake up every single morning?

And what is it that you're thinking of right before you sleep every single night?

And the answer was always music.

I want to be a performer.

I want to be a songwriter.

And it's also been a way for me to, to also connect with my community and to build community.

It's because of music, because of the work, the music that I've done.

And I think once I kind of was able to answer that confidently and into myself I started shifting you know, my perspective and, you know, I thought to myself like, okay, maybe there is a possibility for me to be a full-time artist.

But the cherry on top really was in 2021, I had my annual review with my brand new supervisor and where they give you like the the feedback for the year and what you need to improve on.

And I remember he told me I need to improve on my creativity and my innovation.

Right?

And I was like, "Oh my gosh, if you only knew what I do outside of these walls, outside of this building."

And to me, I, I, I saw that as the universe telling me like, "This is the day, this is the day where you quit and you pursue what you love to do. "

And I walked away with my 25 cent raise and I went to my lock - I went back to my desk and I typed up my two weeks notice letter.

And then the next morning I handed it to him and I told him, "I'm quitting my job."

And right after that, I, I went to New York and I had a billboard of, of myself with Spotify, collaboration with Spotify.

And I thought to myself, yeah, I, this is, this is like the universe telling me that I made the right decision.

And at the end of the day, you know, again, what I wanted, what I, how I want to live my life is I want to wake up every single morning and I want to be able to do what I love to do.

And to this day, I'm glad that I made that decision because now I can show that to my daughter as an example.

And I want my daughter to, to be the same way and to leave her, lead her life the same way and knowing that you know, I, I want her to find what's possible and, and not just stick to what she thinks can be possible, but find that possibility for yourself.

Absolutely.

And I think your self-belief and your tenacity is inspiring for any artist or creative out there because I think a lot of people may not know that before you won Tiny Desk in 2025, you had applied before and didn't get it, which I think is really important to mention because you came back and not only that, but you filmed your winning submission while you were eight months pregnant.

So what does that tell us just about the belief in yourself that you need to have to succeed as an artist and also maybe just the, the need to rise above these limitations that society places on us as women?

Yeah, that was, that was an incredible experience as well to kind of... It felt, it felt like ultimately a full circle moment because back in 2018 I, I submitted for the Tiny Desk Contest for the very first time and I remember me and my band were so nervous when we uploaded it on YouTube and we submitted the form and, and I just kept my fingers crossed.

And when we didn't get the win obviously you know, we were disheartened and we were sad.

But we, we took that as, as a motivation to keep going that sometimes, you know, the, the nos, it's, it's not, it really means not yet.

And so fast-forward to 2025 where I had no expectations whatsoever.

I, I honestly had only submitted our Tiny Desk submission because we were able to record a live version of it.

Because, primarily because I, I wanted to have the video out before I gave birth because otherwise I knew I was gonna be at home and I wouldn't be able to, to do the production for the song.

So it was really a lot of like the, the universe working its magic on its own without kind of me trying to engineer it this time.

And I think what I've learned from the entire process is when you kind of just let go and you show up and you present yourself and you put your work and your heart into the work that you do and you, and you share it with the rest of the world sometimes you just have to let the rest of the world receive it and you know, the, the the seeds that come from your work will, will, will blossom in its own way and in its own time.

And definitely winning it in 2025 was even more special now that again, I, I was a mother and you know, this was a song that was a lot more meaningful for, for me as well.

And you know I think a lot of folks don't also realize that, that Bakunawa, the, the recorded version of Bakunawa has my daughter's heartbeat when I, when I was first going through like my, my ultrasound.

We sampled it and we added her heartbeat and that's what I wrap.

I do the spoken word on top of her heartbeat at the, at the very end of that song.

And to be able to now have these moments creatively where I can incorporate my family in these ways, especially my daughter.

And again, with the hopes of having conversations with her about my lyrics someday this is ultimately what I've always wanted as an artist is to be able to, again, share it beyond myself and and to see how, how, how it kind of takes a life of its own out there when you, when you express it.

Thanks for these amazing insights, Ruby.

I know we're almost out of time, but before we go, can you tell us a bit about what you're working on next and anything that you want your audience to look out for this summer?

I'm working on a lot of stuff that I can't talk about yet.

But they're all very exciting projects.

I, I will say, I will just say fall 2026 there's a lot of stuff that's going to be happening.

And, but more more in the near future, come check us out 5pm outside on the main stage.

I'll be performing with my band.

But thank y'all for coming out today to our, to our talk.

And thank you, Ruby.

Please, another round of applause for Ruby Ibarra.

Hey, thank you.

We'll see everyone outside at 5 for Ruby's set.