Characterized by its skank-influenced percussion, jolty basslines, and samples of zooming jeepneys and internet meme soundbites, budots is a grassroots electronic music genre originating from low-income communities in the Bisaya-speaking regions of the Philippines. It’s also a form of dance that involves squats, gyrates, and miming finger guns. Sherwin Calumpang Tuna, a Davao City local who is better known as DJ Love, is one of the genre’s most influential pioneers.
Arguably, Tuna’s counterpart in the capital city of Manila is electronic music producer Jorge Wieneke. Formerly known as similarobjects and referred today by their artist name obese.dogma.777, they are a fixture in the deconstructed club scene of the Philippines and Southeast Asia at large. They co-founded the experimental music group BuwanBuwan Collective in 2012, helping push the envelope of sound design and worldbuilding in Filipino electronic music. In 2017, BuwanBuwan Collective released Bakunawa Vol. 7: Rodrigo Duterte’s Summer Budots Party, a compilation of budots remixes that primarily samples speeches by former President Rodrigo Duterte. Budots is typically known for being fun, light, and carefree, but Bakunawa Vol. 7 is one of the few known attempts to explicitly add a political dimension to the genre.
Tuna and Wieneke first met in April 2023 when they were both part of the Boiler Room showcase in Manila, which specifically platformed budots as a uniquely Filipino culture and genre of music. That same night, Tuna humbly asked Wieneke if they could be his manager, helping organize local and international bookings while supporting Tuna’s family. “All these years in my life prepared me to become his manager,” Wieneke says, “At that time, maraming kasing vultures. There were a lot of people trying to capitalize on his Boiler Room fame, and the rising global attention on budots.”
Since then, the two have been close friends and collaborators, offering insights into the music industry from each other’s perspectives. Together, Wieneke and Tuna traveled all over the Philippines and Southeast Asia, including Singapore and Malaysia. Tuna even received inquiries from Europe following his release under the record label Eastern Margins, titled Budots World (Reloaded), which he went on tour for in London. Months later, Tuna was invited by CTM Festival in Berlin, Germany, to play in the revered nightclub Berghain Ostgut, which, aside from its notoriously selective door policy, is known as a global institution within the dance and electronic music community. But suddenly struck by health complications, Tuna declined the invitation, and Wieneke stepped in in his place.
‘Post-Budots’
In January, as part of CTM Festival’s program, Wieneke also conducted a workshop and lecture on the concept of “post-budots,” offering practical advice on creating budots and post-budots music on Ableton Live, a music production software. Prior to their trip to Germany, Wieneke received criticisms from Filipino colleagues that budots was being gentrified — especially by Westerners who rigidly danced to DJ Johnrey’s remix of Miami Sound Machine’s “Dr. Beat,” which became a viral TikTok sensation in 2024. But with Tuna’s desire to raise global awareness of budots, he gave Wieneke his blessing to represent the genre in Berlin.
Wieneke sees post-budots as an iteration of how they understand the genre to have evolved — a reframing of budots’ “rawness and humor as a deliberate artistic choice,” they say. For example, post-budots breaks the convention of 140 beats per minute that traditional budots is known for, while also referencing other dance music genres like jersey club, footwork, and gabber.
Wieneke also believes post-budots “experiments with structures and uses sounds more as a cultural commentary, turning its quirks into art,” they state. The contents of the budots lecture was loaded with concepts on its origins and foundations. “We talked about the political meta-layers, the class system, and social hierarchies in post-budots,” they say, “future directions that Sherwin and I had talked about.”
In the workshop, Wieneke realized how passionate foreigners were about budots, even if it was looked down upon as low-class or “baduy” by some Filipinos. But Wieneke didn’t care how others felt because they knew there was something magical about budots. “Budots is often seen as kitsch, low brow, or outsider music,” they say, “Despite how deeply it represents the Filipino spirit — not just in Mindanao — there’s this universal energy that it channels… [Post-budots] asks, ‘Why can’t budots be art? Why can’t awkward rhythms be art? Why can’t low-budget aesthetics be art?’” Whether it was academics, club kids, or college students who had no knowledge of the genre, the overall reception received from their workshop attendees was warm.
Wieneke was met with a similar openness during their set in Berghain, despite the club’s reputation of exclusivity and self-importance. “I got so emotional,” they say, “There’s a feeling [that] you’re raising [the flag] for Filipinos, DJ Love, and budots producers who were always told na ‘memes lang ‘yan,’ or that it’s music for poor people — people who have been gatekept and looked down upon because of class layers.”
Wieneke concluded that post-budots is a concept that isn’t their own. “I resonate with this idea because of me being on the fringes. There’s an unseriousness that I carry with me because I’m a child of the internet. [Post-budots] is like a statement against the gatekeeping culture, scene politics, and elitism of these systems.”
Editor’s Note: This article was updated on March 20, 2025, to include crucial context about budots and DJ Love. The original version didn’t contain information about budots originating from low-income communities, and DJ Love’s London tour. These details have now been incorporated for clarity and accuracy.
