“I hate to say it, but I love being the center of attention,” says BABY FREEZE, the stage name of Pinoy hip-hop act and the internet’s funny girl Sammi Borromeo.
The rapper recalls that the first time she truly fell in love with being a musician was at a show for music label Kindred’s “Switch” tour in 2022. “I did one song, and something clicked in my head, and I said, ‘Yo, like, I feel like I need to keep doing this,’” Borromeo tells Rolling Stone Philippines. “And thankfully, I had friends who saw my talent and really believed in it.”
Among the 25-year-old’s collaborators so far is DJ and electronic music producer Jorge Wieneke, also known as obese.dogma777 and Nouvul, with whom she has released tracks such as “SAYANG U WASTED MY TIME” and “never5ever.”
In August 2025, Borromeo posted a TikTok video commenting on politicians and businessmen involved in the flood control corruption scandal, squandering national funds on “tacky shit.” The video, garnering over 100,000 likes, was then sampled in DJ Cupcakes’ “TACKY,” a house cut that pokes fun at our otherwise very infuriating state of affairs — and also further diversifies BABY FREEZE’s sound.
For the Love of the Game
Borromeo began writing music in 2020 as a college student and became more active as a performer in 2023, with her first “real gig” as BABY FREEZE being Fête de la Musique that same year. “And after that gig, I felt something in me, like I had to keep doing it so that my soul felt fulfilled. It’s why I love writing songs, so that I get to perform [them] for people.”
Performing is second nature to BABY FREEZE, who calls herself a “major theater kid,” having joined workshops in her childhood. From her training, she learned the value of a pre-performance ritual. “I drink tea, I do intense vocal warm-ups. I don’t know what difference it makes. But in my head, it makes a gigantic world of difference, because it gives me more confidence as a performer.”
2025 was the year she finally began putting music “side-by-side” with her day job, and it saw the releases of tracks such as “MOST HIGH” and “LIL ICE,” where Borromeo’s rap persona comes on aggressively.
“Gu-gumagaya na sa akin mga ‘di ko kilala / if you wanna sneak a peak, dapat ka’y tumingala,” she says coolly in the hook of “MOST HIGH.”
Borromeo is at her strongest when her delivery is cold and effervescent, invoking the sexy indifference of American alternative hip-hop duo Coco & Clair Clair, or the dreaminess of Doja Cat’s “Agora Hills.”
Her latest SoundCloud release, “BISH LIKE BABY FREEZE,” puts her in the realm of cloud rap. At almost just a minute and a half, the track suits the rest of her SoundCloud catalog’s average runtime, but it also demonstrates Borromeo’s exploration of sound. In “TWENTY FIVE,” she dips her toes into boom bap; in “pokemon ng ina mo,” she raps over a trap beat; and in “lüv it when ü,” she ventures into hazy pop-R&B.
“I think what makes me different as a musician is that I don’t take myself that seriously as an artist,” she says. “As much as I love [music], as much as it is my passion, it’s also just something I do for fun, because I have a day job. I have other things to prioritize in my life.”
She adds, “It’s really just purely for the love of the game, and I think it reflects in my songs as well. It’s very fun. It’s very unserious and kind of goofy.”
On the Uprise
Borromeo says that being a woman in hip-hop is challenging. “You’re subject to comparison a lot. You’re the only girl on the lineup, or there are no girls on the lineup, and you have to like fight for your position to be like, ‘Hey, can you put me on this? Because there’s not a single woman or queer person on here, like, open up!”
Beyond having fun, she says that she finds another purpose as a female musician in uplifting other women in hip-hop.
“That is really what changed my perspective on what I want at what I want as a musician,” she tells me. “Initially, yeah, it is for fun. It is just because I love making music. But now there’s an added layer of wanting to help elevate other women in the scene. And it doesn’t really matter if I’m the most famous female hip-hop artist. I really just want to hold the other girls’ hands along the way and bring everyone up.”
As she heads into 2026, she hopes to foster a sense of collaboration among fellow Pinoy musicians instead of competition. “That’s something that we encounter a lot, people just want to start beef with each other because they’re in the same industry. But we’re all trying to make it, and we all know that we make something good. So why not help each other rise up?”
At this point in her fledgling music career, it’s hard to place where BABY FREEZE sits in the Pinoy hip-hop landscape, but that’s what makes her so exciting as a new act. And with her debut EP in the works, 2026 may finally be the year we see her prophetic rise.
Rolling Stone Philippines November 2025 Issue, Now Available at SariSari Shopping
