Carving out a unique position in the global pop music landscape, ALAMAT represents a true cultural movement within the P-Pop (Philippine Pop) scene. Formed under VIVA Artists Agency and Ninuno Media, members Taneo, Mo, Jao, Tomas, R-Ji, and Alas bring the multi-faceted richness of the Philippines directly to the stage. Coming from distinct provinces across the archipelago, each member embeds their regional heritage into the group’s music, blending local languages and dialects—including Tagalog, Ilocano, Kapampangan, Bisaya, Waray-Waray, and Bikol—with contemporary R&B, hip-hop, trap, and modern pop structures.
What defines ALAMAT’s career is their commitment to acting as a living archive of heritage, myth, and folklore. Through the integration of indigenous instruments, local narratives, and choreography inspired by traditional folk dances, they prove that hyper-specific cultural storytelling carries a universal emotional resonance that transcends linguistic and geographic boundaries.
Now, the group is set to reach a landmark milestone: their European debut preview. ALAMAT will perform live at THE A Festival in Paris, an event organized by 5OCEANS and Envol Prod at the Paris Event Center on October 24 and 25. Across the two-day festival, European fans will get the chance to experience their live concert performances, join exclusive meet & greets, and access special fan benefits.
Ahead of their Paris event, we spoke with ALAMAT about balancing individual regional identities, modernizing traditional art forms, and bringing their music to European audiences.
ALAMAT’s artistry is deeply rooted in regional Filipino heritage, indigenous languages, and local narratives. When presenting highly specific cultural storytelling to an international audience that may not speak the languages or know the history, how do you leverage vocal emotion, physical performance, and arrangement to ensure the core human narrative transcends linguistic and geographic boundaries?
For us, we don’t think we have to remove the Filipino elements from our music just to make the story understandable to an international audience. We believe that emotion can connect people even when they don’t speak the same language.
When we create a song or performance, we think about how the emotion can come through in different ways. The melody, our voices, the rhythm, the arrangement, and even the way we move on stage. Our choreography also takes inspiration from Filipino folk dances and cultural traditions, so sometimes the story can be felt through movement even before someone understands the words.
We also use different Filipino languages in our music because they’re part of who we are. Someone may not understand every lyric, but they can still feel the joy, longing, pride, or energy behind the song.
For us, the goal isn’t to make Filipino culture less specific so that everyone can understand it. It’s to share it honestly and let people connect with it in their own way. And hopefully, when they feel something through the music, it makes them curious about the language, story, or tradition behind it.
Representing distinct provinces across the Philippines, each member carries a unique regional tradition, dialect, and cultural rhythm. When these individual expressions meet in the creative studio, how do you navigate the friction between preserving distinct regional identities and forging a single, cohesive collective sound?
We think our differences are actually what make ALAMAT stronger. Each of us comes from different parts of the Philippines, so we grew up with different languages, traditions, experiences, and influences. We don’t want to erase those differences just to sound like one person.
When we create together, we first allow everyone to bring their own perspective. But once we’re working on the song, we focus on what serves the story and the emotion of the music. Sometimes one member brings an idea, and another member interprets it differently or adds something from their own experience. That’s when the song starts to become something bigger than just one person’s idea.
We also believe that being a group doesn’t mean we all have to sound or express ourselves in exactly the same way. Our individual identities can exist within one collective identity.
In a way, that’s also representative of the Philippines. We have so many different regions, languages, and traditions, but they all exist within one country. ALAMAT is our way of showing that diversity while still coming together as one group.
Your work acts as a living archive of heritage made accessible through modern pop structures. If you were stripped of the stage and stagecraft entirely, through what alternative discipline—such as anthropological research, archival restoration, or ethnomusicology—would you channel your impulse to safeguard and document your heritage?
If we weren’t artists, we think we would still find a way to tell and preserve Filipino stories. Maybe we’d be storytellers in a different form through writing, documenting stories, researching our different cultures, or helping pass those stories on to younger generations.
What’s important to us is that these stories don’t get forgotten. The Philippines has so many myths, traditions, languages, and stories from different communities, and we want people, especially younger Filipinos, to continue discovering them.
That’s also why we try to present these things in ways that feel exciting and relevant today. Preservation doesn’t always have to mean keeping something exactly as it was. Sometimes, you can keep the meaning and spirit of something alive by allowing it to evolve and introducing it to a new generation in a way they can connect with.
Whether through music or another discipline, we think the important thing is to keep the stories alive and make sure they continue to be passed on.
If you could step outside linear time and invite a historical literary figure, traditional folk master, or iconic artist from the past into your recording booth, who would you choose? How would you structure that creative dialogue to bridge their historical perspective with ALAMAT’s contemporary sonic language?
If we could invite someone from the past into the recording studio, we’d probably want to meet someone who could give us a deeper understanding of the traditional music, stories, and ways of life that influenced Filipino culture.
Rather than simply asking them to make music with us, we’d want to listen to them first. We’d want to understand what their music meant to their community, what stories they were trying to tell, and what sounds or traditions were important to them.
Then we could show them what we’re doing with those influences today. We could play one of our songs and explain how we’ve taken elements of Filipino culture and reinterpreted them through R&B, pop, hip-hop, and contemporary performance.
It would be interesting to see what they would think about that evolution. Maybe they would recognize something familiar in what we’re doing, even if the sound is completely different.
For us, that would be the most meaningful conversation: understanding where something came from, then showing how that spirit continues to live in the present.
If you were to take an iconic European classical masterwork—such as a piece by Vivaldi or Beethoven—and completely deconstruct it, through what structural elements (vocal harmonies, regional instrumentation, R&B phrasing) would you reassemble it into a modern P-pop composition?
We’d probably have a lot of fun with that. We’re familiar with composers like Beethoven and Vivaldi, and it would be interesting to take something people already recognize and suddenly flip it into something completely different.
For example, imagine taking Beethoven’s “Für Elise” and keeping that familiar melody, but putting it over a beat inspired by a Filipino regional rhythm. Then maybe we add Filipino instruments, modern pop production, some hip-hop or rap sections, and our own vocal harmonies. One member could even come in with a completely unexpected style, and somehow we make it work.
We wouldn’t want to limit it to just one genre. It could move from classical, to pop, to hip-hop, to rap, or even incorporate sounds inspired by different regions of the Philippines. That contrast would actually be the fun part.
We think it would be cool if someone heard the first few notes and thought, “Oh, I know this song,” and then suddenly the beat drops and they hear something completely unexpected.
That’s also how we like to approach culture in ALAMAT. We take something that already has a history and meaning, then reinterpret it through the sounds, experiences, and influences that are part of who we are today. So it’s not about changing the original just for the sake of being different, it’s about seeing what happens when two very different musical worlds meet.
Elisa Cutullè