The Algerian-born hip-hop producer gives the Muslim south of the Philippines a voice

MANILA: Mohammed Bansil mentors a number of young artists and serves in multiple roles as a businessman, producer and mentor to Filipino hip-hop talent – all with one main goal: to give a voice to the Moro people and their stories about the Muslim south of the Philippines.

Bansil, known as DJ Medmessiah, is the founder of Morobeats, the independent record label and music collective that also includes his daughters, the new sensations of the Philippine hip-hop scene, Miss A and Fateeha.

Morobeats’ projects and collaborations garner millions of views on Netflix, Spotify and YouTube, but they still don’t fit into the hip-hop mainstream, which is flooded with issues surrounding money and urban gangs.

“This is fake. In this day and age, everyone talks about how rich they are, how good or how gangsters they are, how aggressive they are. And for me, coming from Mindanao, this is really cheesy,” Bansil told Arab News.

“I want something that has more substance.”

Morobeats’ distinctive sound and lyrics combine both hip hop and influences from the indigenous cultures of the Sulu and Mindanao islands in the southern Philippines – home to over a dozen predominantly Muslim ethno-linguistic groups known as the Moro people.

The music features the kulintang – the ancient gong and drum ensemble traditionally used in the region – and the rap verses are in Tausug and Chavacano, the local languages ​​spoken on the Zamboanga Peninsula in Mindanao.

One of the viral songs, “Hunghang,” is about greed, empty promises, and not being fooled by propaganda.

“All you needed was a good melody. And then 15 million people or 20 to 25 million people heard that music,” Bansil said.

But achieving such numbers cost him years of struggle and self-determination.

Born in Algeria to a Filipino Tausug father and a Moroccan-Algerian mother, he spent his childhood in France and then in the Muslim enclave of Maharlika village in Taguig, east of Metro Manila.

“The people who live there contribute to the Moro culture… there are people from that culture who pioneered the kulintangs and the Moro dances… we have seen Muslim dances, songs and all that,” Bansil said.

When his father was offered a job as a Sharia court judge, the family settled in Pagadian City in Zamboanga, the center of Moro-Muslim culture and a region with a history of separatist violence.

This is where Bansil’s penchant for hip-hop emerged. He became a competitive drummer for his school’s drum and bugle band in Pagadian, an experience he credits as the foundation for his beat-making.

He learned to rap in Zamboanga City, where the family moved in 1992 after his father’s death. Since his mother ran a textile and merchandise store, he started working as an MC in the city’s first club at the age of 15. There he met DJ Sonny of Mastaplann, a duo that dominated Philippine hip hop in the 1990s.

When DJ Sonny told him to travel to Manila, Bansil packed his bags and flew there to hone his rapping and music production skills. There, he began to develop his signature sound, drawing from his percussive background and the indigenous beats of Zamboanga and Mindanao.

He struggled to break into Manila’s commercial music scene as record labels thought his kulintang-heavy songs and tausug rap were good but not marketable. Eventually, he landed a record deal with a label that wanted him to make commercially viable reggaeton music, and eventually produced a radio hit that even played on one of the Philippines’ most popular noontime shows.

“But that wasn’t really what I wanted to do, that kind of music. But I did it to survive,” he said. “Of course, that was 2004 (and) nobody wanted to listen to Tausug rap or the Moro stuff.”

To provide for his young family after his marriage, Bansil ran a halal fusion restaurant in Manila to pay his bills so he could finally form Morobeats in 2014 to spread the kind of music he wanted to make and pave the way for the artists he believed in.

“Do your best, do your thing. If you really deserve to get money, if you really deserve to be famous, then it will be there, it will follow. Don’t make it the main reason why you make music, because you will destroy your music,” he said.

“Consistency beats everything… If you say, ‘Yes, I’m a Moro, I’m a unique guy, my sound is needed here,’ you’re the only one who can convince yourself of that. Your self-determination will take you anywhere.”

It took him to New York City in 2023, where Morobeats was featured on a giant billboard in Times Square.

“If I can do it in New York’s Times Square, what about the next generation? I’m 46 and I’ve done it,” he said. “The young generation has the time.”

His plan for the young artists on his label is for them to stick to what they do without compromising. He believes that hard work is key, especially for Moro people who want to be heard.

“All these results or achievements, it’s all there. It’s like money. Money is everywhere, resources are everywhere. It’s just up to us how we get it. The only freedom we have, in my opinion, is our discipline. If we don’t have that, we have nothing,” he said.

“The goal is to work hard. I hope my whole team sees it that way too.”