HanHan

HanHan is a young Filipino-Canadian female poet/emcee who addresses Filipino diasporic social issues through her lyricism, inspired by her personal experiences as a young Filipino immigrant woman of colour ranging from immigrant issues, social activism and cultural pride. Rapping in Tagalog and Cebuano, her music features elements and sounds of Filipino traditional instruments (kulintang, agong, bamboos and kubing) with contemporary hiphop beats, and her performances feature elements of Filipino folk dance and movement with Filipino and diasporic visual elements. Migrating to Canada in 2006, HanHan began dropping in on a poetry workshop, and soon thereafter joined a variety of artist collectives, and performed in a variety of community events. Since the release of her debut self-titled album in 2014, her music has been featured in a video game, a Canadian independent film, a TV show, licensed by EMI UK and has been on radio in France, Berlin and in the Philippines, and her song "World Gong Crazy" featuring DATU, was nominated for "Best Song" category at the Berlin Music Video Awards in 2017. Some of the proceeds of her album were donated to the Lake Sebu School of Living Traditions in the Philippines, where she spent time immersing herself in the Tboli community, because she believes in preserving traditional indigenous arts and culture through passing them on to the next generation. She works with choreographer Fly Lady Di and Hataw, a multidisciplinary performance arts group, in a variety of contexts from music festivals and venues in and beyond Toronto as well as in theatre productions. By day, HanHan works as a registered nurse in the operating room specializing in cardiac surgery and an active member of Toronto’s Filipino-Canadian community, and is no stranger to the struggles of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) and working immigrants