A song you didn’t look for: How Hengjones and Our Shame drifted into the Filipino landscape 

Sometimes, all it takes is a fleeting moment—a shoreline, a craving, a curious ear—for music to cross borders and quietly stay.

It happens in between places.

Maybe you’re on a jeepney, the city folding into itself outside the window, or sitting in traffic with the radio filling the silence. Then a song comes on—one you don’t recognize. It doesn’t sound like the usual OPM you’ve memorized by heart. The rhythm moves differently. The words are unfamiliar.

But you don’t change the station.

Because somewhere between the beat and the breath of the voice, it feels like it understands you anyway.

That’s how Taiwanese artists like HengJones and Our Shame arrive—not loudly, not all at once—but gently, like a song that finds its way into your day without asking.

HengJones carries depth in every track. His debut album “fangcalay a tamedaw” is rooted in Indigenous Pangcah Amis identity, where stories of matriarchs and language preservation move alongside modern hip-hop beats. It feels grounded, like something that remembers.

Our Shame, on the other hand, feels like something you almost forget, but never quite do. Their folktronica sound drifts between acoustic softness and electronic echoes, building songs that feel like memories you can’t fully explain.

Different sounds but same quiet impact.

A memory by the sea, a curiosity for the streets

Sometimes, music doesn’t begin in a studio.

Sometimes, it begins in a place.

In a recent private roundtable, Our Shame’s Estelle shared that it was the shorelines of Boracay that flickered the moment. A one-time experience—sunlight on water, salt in the air, the slow rhythm of waves meeting sand. It wasn’t meant to be anything more than a visit.

But it stayed.

And when something stays, it changes the way you create. The way you listen. The way you imagine sound.

For HengJones, the connection begins differently but just as quietly. It’s in the way he talks about wanting to explore the Philippines beyond the stage. To walk through its streets, to feel its everyday life, to understand its people not as an audience, but as something closer.

Even the smallest details matter—like wanting to try Filipino barbecue. A simple craving, but one that speaks of openness. Of wanting to experience a culture not just through music, but through moments.

Not grand gestures. Just real ones.

Where sound becomes something shared

It’s easy to think music needs translation. That language draws the line between what we understand and what we don’t.

But moments like these blur that line.

A memory in Boracay. A curiosity for street food. A rhythm that feels like home, even when it isn’t.

These are the beginnings of something bigger—something that artists like HengJones and Our Shame are only starting to explore. With the support of their team, including HengJones’ manager Hanaku Purapuran, there’s already talk of future collaborations, of songs possibly shaped by Filipino experiences, carried by genres that both cultures understand—R&B, reggae, something warm, something lived-in.

Nothing is final. But the direction is there.

And maybe that’s how Taiwanese music begins its journey in the Filipino soundscape—not through grand announcements, but through quiet connections. Through moments that feel small, but linger longer than expected.

So when they stepped onto the stage at “All Of The Noise 2026” last April 17 to 18, it wasn’t just another performance.

It was already something in motion—like that unfamiliar song on the radio you almost skipped, until you didn’t.

And long after it faded, it lingered, the kind that stays not for how it sounded, but for how it made you feel.

Our Shame performed on the first day, April 17, at All Of The Noise in Sari-Sari Bar, Makati. Hengjones followed on April 18, at 123 Block in Mandaluyong.

 

 

These are the beginnings of something bigger, something that artists like HengJones and Our Shame are only starting to explore. With the support of their team, there’s already talk of future collaborations, of songs possibly shaped by Filipino experiences, carried by genres that both cultures understand.

 

 

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