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DJ Love

Budots World (Reloaded)

Filipino ‘Budots’ pioneer DJ and producer DJ Love (Sherwin Tuna) drops his debut album 'Budots World (Reloaded)’ released 7th August through Eastern Margins.

DJ Love (Sherwin Tuna) explains: "This album is my love letter to the Filipino people and to all local Budots Producers. The album is a tribute and a testament to the idea that Budots and all of its creators and practitioners deserve the world to recognise their art."

Budots originated in the southern part of the Philippines in the 2000s and 2010s. The name ‘Budots’ is derived from a Bisaya slang word meaning “slacker”. Originally burdened with derogatory connotations around juvenile delinquency, it was DJ Love who ‘shifted the definition of Budots from simply bumming around to an art form of expression’ (Mixmag, 2020).

In the mid 2010s, Budots exploded in the Philippines. Budots became the bona fide sound of Jeepneys, malls and driveways across the entire Archipelagos. It even reached the point of being used in political campaigns and being danced to by the polarising President Rodrigo Duerte.

Nowadays, in large part due to the digital dissemination of information via social media, Budots’ reputation spreads far beyond the Philippines. Its repetitive yet attention-grabbing nature has made budots ubiquitous on short form video platforms, its sound scoring countless TikTok, Douyins and YouTube videos. DJ Love remains at the centre of this movement: classic tracks of his such as TiwTiw have racked up 50,000 creations on TikTok alone, whilst his set at the now legendary Manila Community Radio Boiler Room of 2023 is the most viewed Boiler Room from the Philippines.