Filipino name centre employee Jaycer Bajo’s Spotify playlist has modified loads over the previous few years.
Bajo used to principally take heed to chart-topping hits from the US, however nowadays, he has a gradual stream of Pinoy Pop, or P-pop, artists on rotation: from boybands ALAMAT and BGYO, to the lady group BINI, which in April grew to become the primary all-Filipino lady group to carry out on the Coachella music pageant.
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“Over the previous 5 years, I believe I’ve switched from 70 % Western music to, proper now, round 70 % Philippines after which 30 % elsewhere,” Bajo, who lives north of Metro Manila, instructed Al Jazeera.
“There have been bands and teams within the Philippines that have been making high quality music earlier than 2020, however it simply boomed after that right here,” Bajo mentioned.
ALAMAT, BGYO, and BINI, all of whom launched their debut singles in 2021, draw closely on influences from Ok-pop, J-pop, and Western pop, R&B and hip-hop, whereas incorporating Filipino themes and languages into their music.
“They borrowed construction from Ok-Pop, however the expertise parts are homegrown,” Bajo mentioned.
Throughout Southeast Asia, homegrown acts are more and more displacing their Korean, Japanese and American counterparts on pop-lovers’ playlists.
In Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, the share of native artists in Spotify’s weekly prime 10 rose from 39 % to 97 %, 31 % to 81 %, and 71 % to 76 %, respectively, between 2021 and the primary half of 2026, based on knowledge compiled by Soundcharts, a French music analytics platform.
Native artists additionally gained traction on the radio weekly prime 10, rising from 29 % to 55 % in Indonesia, zero to five % within the Philippines, and from 38 % to 65 % in Thailand over the identical interval, based on Soundcharts knowledge.
Cod Satrusayang, a Thai movie producer who works with native musicians on soundtracks, mentioned he has observed a serious shift in the direction of homegrown influences on the industrial aspect of the music scene lately.
“For the longest time, T-Pop and Thai music have been simply an emulation of Korean and American fashion, and solely lately, the final 5 years and even much less, we see Thai artists forging their very own identification,” Satrusayang instructed Al Jazeera.
Satrusayang’s favorite Thai acts, reminiscent of YOUNGOHM, MILLI, and Joey Phuwasit, differ stylistically from the traditional Ok-Pop components, however he nonetheless credit South Korea’s hit-making cultural juggernaut with exhibiting different Asian nations that there’s a international viewers for his or her music.
For the reason that launch of Psy’s Gangnam Type in 2012, Ok-Pop has reached a degree of mainstream success far past that achieved by earlier waves of Asian pop music.
Whereas artists from Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan achieved regional fame within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, few got here near matching the crossover attraction of Blackpink’s 2023 efficiency at Coachella or BTS’s collaborations with American rapper Lil Nas X and British rock band Coldplay.
In 2023 alone, the Ok-pop business earned $893m abroad, together with by album gross sales, on-line streaming income, and Ok-Pop performances, based on the South Korean authorities’s Korea Tradition and Tourism Institute.
Ok-pop proved as soon as and for all that Asian music might be commercially profitable, Satrusayang mentioned.
“Trade, the studios and unbiased artists see that it’s attainable to make actually good cash going worldwide, and it’s fuelling an entire renaissance within the Thai inventive house,” Satrusayang mentioned.
Whereas Southeast Asia’s music business continues to be dwarfed by its friends in South Korea, Japan and China, it’s rising quickly.
Within the Philippines, digital music income – a determine that features podcast promoting, music streaming, music downloads, and music streaming promoting – doubled from $93m to $180m between 2021 and 2025, based on knowledge shared with Al Jazeera by Julia Stoll, an analyst on the international knowledge platform Statista.
In Thailand, digital music income rose from $132m to $204m over the identical interval, based on the info, whereas income in Indonesia elevated from $164m to $264m.
Innovating for a brand new market
A lot of this success wouldn’t have been attainable with out social media platforms reminiscent of TikTok and Instagram, which have enabled artists to succeed in out to their followers immediately in short-form movies.
Chatting with Al Jazeera from the Philippines, the members of the boy band BGYO mentioned social media is as essential to their job as their coaching with South Korean and Filipino coaches.
“We work together with all of our followers each single day, once we get up till we sleep. We’re on the cellphone loads, so we’re posting TikToks, dances, humorous issues. We’re tweeting, and we’re interacting with them by feedback,” mentioned 23-year-old BGYO member Nate Porcalla.
Like their Ok-pop friends, the band engages with native followers by common performances and occasions, however on songs reminiscent of Endlessly Tonight, their newest single, they sing in a mixture of English and Tagalog.
Southeast Asia’s pop renaissance dovetails with an increase in shoppers’ spending energy throughout the area, echoing tendencies seen within the US and East Asia throughout their post-WWII financial booms, mentioned Mary Ainslie, who researches tradition and media in Southeast Asia on the College of Nottingham’s Ningbo Campus in China.
Thailand was designated an upper-middle-income nation by the World Financial institution in 2011, after its Gross Nationwide Earnings per capita hit $4,210.
Indonesia has been designated an upper-middle-income nation since 2023, after falling out of the bracket in 2020 as a result of financial disruption attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Philippines continues to be categorized as a middle-income nation, however President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has mentioned he needs it to interrupt into the following revenue bracket by the point he leaves workplace in 2028.
“All of those totally different ‘waves’ adapt and innovate for each regional and international shoppers and seem in tandem with the financial development of every nation,” Ainslie instructed Al Jazeera.
“Ok-pop has demonstrated that Asian-based popular culture is globally viable and engaging; this has offered each inspiration and a mannequin of innovation for native industries,” she mentioned.
Regional outliers
Two of Southeast Asia’s wealthiest nations, Singapore and Malaysia, are notable outliers to the pattern.
Western and Ok-Pop stay the musical genres of selection on Singaporean and Malaysian radio, in addition to on Singapore’s Spotify playlists, based on Soundcharts knowledge.
Whereas native acts have made some floor in Malaysia, regional artists dominate the nation’s playlists.
Whereas Malaysian artists’ share of the Spotify weekly prime 10 grew from 1 % in 2021 to about 8.3 % within the first half of 2026, regional teams rose from 5 % to 45.7 % over the identical interval, based on Soundcharts knowledge.
A lot of this curiosity in regional pop music has been pushed by Indonesian artists, based on Tsurezure Lab, an unbiased researcher and knowledge analyst whose work has been cited by the Japanese authorities.
Analysing Spotify’s Weekly prime 50 songs from 2023 onwards, Tsurezure Lab discovered that Indonesian artists rose from an 18 % share in Malaysia in 2023 to about 22 % in early 2026.
The researcher, who requested to stay nameless as a result of he works within the non-public sector, mentioned this was an instance of “cross-border cultural alignment”, as a result of Malaysia and Indonesia have related cultures and languages.
Thousands and thousands of Indonesians additionally stay and work in Malaysia – amongst different nations in Asia – bringing their music with them.
For Elhana Sugaiman, an Indonesian who works at an NGO in Taiwan, the rise of Indonesian pop music has helped her stay related to dwelling whereas dwelling abroad.
Sugaiman mentioned she has been listening to numerous No Na, a woman group whose members all hail from Indonesia, though they’re signed to the US label 88Rising, which promotes Asian and Asian-American artists.
No Na’s tracks supply listeners like Sugaiman a dose of Indonesian tradition and nostalgia, incorporating sounds that locals would immediately recognise, just like the native bus and conventional Indonesian gamelan, of their music, and luxurious Indonesian backdrops of their music movies.
“They actually put ahead Indonesian tradition of their music,” Sugaiman instructed Al Jazeera, including that she likes being reminded of dwelling and seeing international listeners find out about Indonesian tradition by No Na’s music.
“I believe it makes me pleased with being Indonesian,” she mentioned.
“I’m unsure if it’s as a result of I stay overseas… however a part of it’s since you get to see [Indonesia] on display screen and represented,” Sugaiman mentioned.
