For decades, the pop landscape rooted in the Philippines has centered creative exchange as a core pillar of its identity, drawing together artists from disparate corners of the nation’s diverse creative community to build work that feels both rooted in local cultural context and accessible to audiences far beyond the archipelago’s borders. This impulse to collaborate, to lift up complementary artistic voices and weave their distinct perspectives into a single cohesive work, is what powers every part of the creation and circulation of pop sounds from the region, and it’s the exact foundation that brought together the team behind the sound KALAKAL, which credits both SB19 and Gloc-9 as its core creative forces.