by DJ Dostoevsky
On May 18th, UC Santa Cruz celebrated its 40th Annual Multicultural Festival in the Porter Dining Hall. With a plethora of talented student performances, the festival was a display of the diverse cultural identities that make up the campus student body. The headlining event which closed out the festival was a performance from Bay Area rapper Ruby Ibarra and the Balikbayans. Ruby’s high energy performance gripped the attention of audience members, making for an exciting conclusion to the festival. Ruby Ibarra released her debut album Circa91 in 2017, and has since toured around the US and Internationally, as well as collaborated with TDE R&B singer SZA for a Mastercard promotional campaign. Her performance included songs such as Yuh, Here, Taking Names, The Otherside, Welcome, Playbill$, The Realness, and what has easily become one of her most influential and important songs Us, a power anthem embracing Filipina identity. I was able to get an exclusive interview with Ruby Ibarra that evening, which you can listen to in podcast format on our website.