• Home
• /
• Entertainment

Gloc-9 gets his Diploma

The 14-track, all-Tagalog album is bannered by the carrier single Lando, a song about the tragic life of a taong-grasa, or a poor man turned desperate because of life’s trials. Lando was co-written by Chito Miranda of Parokya ni Edgar, who did the chorus, which is performed on the album by local rap king Francis Magalona.

The song mirrors the harsh realities of life. In fact, most of the songs on the album were culled from real-life experiences, as in the case of Lando, which was inspired by a true story about a poor boy who falls in love with a rich girl. But their seemingly perfect life turns tragic when a crime drives the poor boy to despair.

It is the kind of story that happens to so many nameless and faceless people in today’s urban jungle. It is so common an experience that even Gloc-9 himself had no trouble finishing the song. The song practically wrote itself; he finished it in three and a half hours. “It was like someone was already dictating the next line to me,” he says. “It was an eerie experience.”

Just from listening to the songs on the album, it is obvious that there is a depth present in Diploma that was absent from Gloc-9’s earlier songwriting efforts. His drumbeaters describe it as a 360-degree turn in his songwriting.

“Before, I would just get a pen and write songs without thinking about how they would affect the listeners,” he says. “Now, I think of the consequences first. As much as possible, I also want to produce songs with positive messages. Part of my mission now is to bring positive influences to bear on my audience, especially on children.”

That is one of the reasons why Diploma is more special to him than his previous albums. “It’s very special because the truth is, I never imagined that my songs could sound like this,” he says. “We put a lot of effort into this album musically and played around with the arrangements, and it paid off."