It can be difficult to tell what’s going to blow up these days, but anyone who’s been paying attention to Filipino rap knew it was only a matter of time for Psychedelic Boyz. Their latest video “Rawstarr Til I Die” dropped back in April but just started to go viral this month. Earlier this week it broke a million views, according to director J. Estacio, and it’s already nearing two million. “I get tagged in a lot of videos from fans posting this song online, hanging out with their friends doing wild shit. Even babies and young kids be bumping to it. And there’s a parody video now too!”
Estacio—who’s done videos for other independent Filipino rappers gone viral like Al James and Because—posted the “Rawstarr” video to his Hella Solid channel, where the majority of Psychedelic Boyz videos have also been published. He first saw them perform in 2017 outside of a Fete De La Musiqe event, Manila’s largest music festival: “Nobody really knew who they were at the time, so they performed on the streets outside the event with a portable speaker and microphone, blocking traffic and hyping the crowd outside. They immediately caught my attention and when I got home I messaged them right away.”
They filmed most of “Rawstarr” in the back streets of Makati, where the Boyz are from. “The barangay tried to shut us down on the first day when we were shooting on the parked excavator, even though we had permission. But while they were arguing with us about a permit we just kept shooting and finished it up,” Estacio laughs. Strangely enough, there were fewer problems during the wild night shots. “I guess that was pretty risky, but no one seemed to care.”
