Ruby Ibarra Took Center Stage at San Francisco Music Week

On Feb. 27, artists, venue owners, label heads and booking agents gathered at Swedish American Hall to discuss all things music in the Bay Area. This was San Francisco Music Week’s Industry Summit, and in an onstage conversation that kicked off the event, I spoke with Ruby Ibarra, a talented MC from the East Bay city of San Lorenzo who won NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest in 2025.

At SF Music Week, Ibarra brought audiences into her mindset as a former professional scientist who still meticulously crafts her multi-lingual rhymes in English, Tagalog and Bisaya. She shed light on the record label she co-founded, Bolo Music Group, and the importance of developing music-industry infrastructure here in the Bay.

Ibarra also opened up about breaking barriers: She filmed her Tiny Desk submission with an intergenerational Filipino band, while she was eight-months pregnant. She shared how motherhood has changed her as an artist and as a person.

“It’s such an exciting time right now to be from the Bay,” Ibarra said to head nods and applause from the audience.

“I feel like this is really kind of right at the tipping-point right now,” she continued, “where the eyes are on the Bay and it really feels special to be an artist out here.”

After the audience wished her a belated happy birthday, we jumped into our conversation. Here are a few excerpts from the 50-minute discussion, cut for length and edited for clarity.

Pendarvis Harshaw: How are you feeling? How are you ushering in this new season?

Ruby Ibarra: I wouldn’t say that things have slowed down particularly, but now that I am currently off tour after last year, I’ve had those moments to sit and reflect — taking a look at the blessings that have come in my career. But also taking a look at how the music scene continues to develop and thrive here where I grew up.

I don’t know if y’all were out here in the Bay during Super Bowl weekend a couple weeks ago, but to see our OGs, like Too Short and E-40, celebrated, loved and amplified, I feel like that was a reminder to me to stay rooted here and continue to build community here. I feel very inspired right now.

How do you keep in mind how important art is, given everything else going on in the world? 

I can’t separate the politics and the social justice from the art. It’s embedded in my identity. The fact that I’m a woman and the fact that I am Filipino — even just to breathe, even just to be here is very political when there’s people telling you that you don’t belong here, when people’s families are being separated right now.

When I created the song “Bakunawa,” it really was being completely unfiltered, being unapologetic and just putting forth myself 100%. And I think that’s really the way that I’ve always approached my art.

I also wanted to share, it was also a very unique time of also winning the Tiny Desk Contest last year in 2025. We were sent off on a ten-city tour with NPR, and our first stop was Los Angeles, and this was the time when [President Trump] brought in the National Guard.

My band and I flew into Los Angeles, and that same evening they put a curfew on the city. And I think that really put it into perspective: People are being silenced, and if I have the privilege and the opportunity to have microphone in my hand. That means I better say something with substance, I better speak for people who don’t have a microphone in their hands.

Taking a step back from the music, from the technical work, you also co-founded Bolo Music Group. What has it been like for you to be on that side of the table?

It’s been such a rollercoaster. It’s been so interesting. It has been so fulfilling. So, to give a little bit of context for folks that aren’t familiar with Bolo Music Group, it’s an independent record label that I co-founded with my bass player from my band, Angelo “LASI” Macaraeg.

Really the the intent with for Bolo Music Group for us was to create a space where we’re making it easier for the next generation of artists. Because for me, this has not been an overnight thing, y’all.

I think LaRussell might have mentioned this in an interview that I caught recently. Shoutout to LaRussell, speaking of independent artists. I think he said something along the lines of, I’m paraphrasing, “Overnight success is a long journey,” and that really holds true for me.

To think about how many years I put into my career, it shouldn’t take every artist so long to break through that door. It shouldn’t take the next set of artists that long to get acknowledged by a platform as big as NPR.

And so for Bolo, we want to ensure that we are creating a hub where we’re sharing resources. But we’re also, first and foremost, building an infrastructure so that we’re helping spread the knowledge and business acumen.

In November of 2024, you brought a baby girl into the world. What has motherhood taught you?

It’s taught me everything. And what I mean by everything is, it’s taught me things that I thought I already knew about myself. I had to redefine what patience looks like for me. I had redefine what grace looks like me. I had define what being gentle with myself looks like to me.

I can’t even put it in words right now how much she means to me and how important she is. I finally found something, someone that I love more than music. And as y’all know, I’m super obsessed with what I do. That is how much I love her.

I’m also very happy that I get to share these moments with her. I brought her to some of my tour dates last year. She’s only 15 months old. I know at the end of the day, I’m the one who’s gonna remember all of this. But to have footage and video and pictures of it, and to share those moments with her later on is what really makes me excited. And I think how it’s also changed my life as an artist, is that I’m more intentional than ever of what I talk about in my music.

It makes me excited to really dive into critical conversations, exploring my womanhood in my next album, for example. Because these are topics that I want to someday sit down and have conversations with her about.

On the studio version of “Bakunawa” we sampled her heartbeat. It’s in the outro when I do that spoken word, when the Bisaya language comes on. In one of my early appointments when I was pregnant, I took out my phone and I recorded her heartbeat when I was like six months pregnant.

I want to remind folks too, that just because you’re a mother, it doesn’t mean that these things need to be separate. I don’t need to a mother and also an artist. I can’t be a mother and an artist at the same time.

For me growing up, that’s always been the messaging that I’ve received in society, especially in Filipino culture. “Once you become a mom, you better be ready to retire everything else that you’ve got.” And I think what I want to set forth and do now in my career is be an example that, no, you can’t do both. Who says that you need to stop that part of yourself?

I feel like I would be doing my daughter a disservice if I were to stop doing music, if I were to stop doing the things that fulfill me. Because at the end of the day, I can’t be the best mother I can be if I cannot be my whole self.