Playertwo: Power Up Unlocked

Hip-hop group PLAYERTWO radiates positive energy and good vibes. That’s just how they are and that’s just how they want their music to be also. Rappers IVO, Wave P, and Luke April together with visual directors Ven and Puhken are just like your typical 20-something boys obsessed with their creativity, planning, and executing their next move.

They’ve been in Manila since February of this year and have been booked and blessed since then. “Manila feels like home,” says IVO even though they’re miles away from Davao. Their reason being how accepting and appreciative the Manila crowd with their music. “We’re so happy because it gives us confidence every time people like our songs,” adds Wave P. Not much time had passed between Playertwo’s signing with Warner Music Philippines and the formation of the full five-member band. It all started with IVO and Luke April. They’ve known each other since senior high school. They chose to tag team because they both have a penchant for rapping. They started having studio sessions together and as they continued recording their songs, IVO met Puhken and Wave P who started an event production that they called We Out Here. “They reached out to me to perform for their events. I performed for them a couple of times, at that time, Luke and I were already Playertwo, we already released a song called ‘Talk Straight.’ I invited Luke to perform that track with me at one of the We Out Here events,” says IVO. Luke and IVO got to talk to Wave P, who was also doing music that he had IVO listen to. When the timing was right, they all got in the studio for sessions, then the tracks “Shower Music” and “That’s my Baby” were born. All three were already liking what they were generating musically when they decided to add visuals to the mix. “I asked Puhken to join in because he did a music video of mine when I was doing my solo thing and we thought that he would be a great addition to the team,” shares IVO. Puhken then thought of inviting Ven, who’s also a video director. After realizing that they are at their creative best when working together, they made the decision to become Playertwo collectively. Their music? Likeable. Hip-hop that you can’t help but move to. Happier with less angst. They have individual musical influences spanning from Tyler the Creator, J.Cole, JID, but as a group, they’re inspired by Brockhampton, and for some unexpected reason, Gary V. “We want Gary Valenciano to be in one of our music videos. We’re reaching out to Sir Paolo Valenciano, we want to work with Gary V., please!” says Puhken.

They’ve released their first album Happy Accidents Vol.1 under Warner Music Philippines and they will also be part of the 30th anniversary project of the record company, which is something to really watch out for. “I randomly discovered Bob Ross online. I got hooked with watching him paint. He would always say the term “happy accidents” when he paints. I have a lot of notes on my phone for album names, song titles, and Happy Accidents is one of them. I pitched it to the group and for some reason it relates to the way we do things; the way everything happened in the group. The way we also do songs, they’re accidents but happy [laughs],” says Luke April when asked how they came up with the name of their album. Continue reading as Playertwo discusses their creative process, how they prepare for a performance, and what the last months of 2023 holds for them.

HOW IS LIFE IN DAVAO AND HOW IS THE HIP-HOP SCENE THERE?

Puhken: The hip-hop scene before in Davao was going steady and strong. I’m just not sure at the moment because it’s been a while since I attended a hip-hop event there since we’re currently based here in Manila. Before the pandemic I usually attend a lot of hip-hop events and would organize some. Davao is a big city, sometimes there’s a hip-hop event in the North, there’s a hip-hop event Downtown, there’s a hip-hop event in the South. It’s not like this one big thing. There are people who would like a particular event organizer or music but it’s still a fun scene. IVO and Luke would perform at some of those hip-hop events before.

IVO: That’s way before 2019.

Puhken: I got into the hip-hop scene because I was interested with the sound of the artists in Davao. I was surprised that there’s already that kind of music and those type of events there. However, there aren’t that many events, which is a sad thing. If you’re an artist and you want to perform for a crowd, sometimes you have to be the one who should organize your event and if you’re just going to wait for other organizers to mount events, sometimes you’ll just get one or two gigs a month.

COULD YOU PLEASE WALK ME THROUGH YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS, FROM COMPOSING THE RHYMES TO GENERATING THE BEAT/MELODY AND TYING IT TO YOUR VISUAL NARRATIVES? HOW CRUCIAL IS IT FOR YOUR SONGS TO HAVE VISUAL REPRESENTATION?

IVO: We start by doing the music first, we rarely start with the lyrics, it’s always about the music so it’s either Wave P, me, or Luke show each other a beat. Sometimes we do it from scratch so we play it by ear and see what lyrics would fit with this mood. Somehow, we don’t really decide, “Oh I should be here! You should be there!” It just flows and it forms in itself. For “That’s my Baby” we did that by Luke pitching an idea. He made us listen to a Brockhampton song that has a 90s beat, there was also a reference of an INOJ song. Luke did the guitar, then Wave P and I were just rhyming stuff in the background and singing “that’s my baby” as a joke. After the beat was formed, we tried to record it, and it sounded good and we just kept it. It’s really just from how we feel in that session and whatever just comes out, we don’t overthink it.      

Ven: For the visual representation, our process is to study the feel or vibe of the song, from there that’s when we incorporate our ideas or concepts for the visuals. Like the “Thinkin’ of Love” music video, when I listened to it, I thought of showing compilations of home videos, childhood videos growing up. Also, in that music video, I wanted to show our journey from us being D.I.Y. kids from Davao to being Manila-based artists playing in bigger events and crowd. Hopefully, people will get inspired by it, to create their own music and visuals.

Puhken: We started incorporating visuals to our performance during our first show in Manila. We opened for Felip. We were actually required to have visuals. The thing about our group is that we can all produce graphics, we all have different tastes, but we all agree on one thing. It also helped that Wave P is good with branding. I think we’re very different from other hip-hop groups because they seem to want to show the really “wild” side of hip-hop. As for us, since we’re an alternative hip-hop group, we chose to just be easy going, who can be a bit wild sometimes [laughs].

Ven: In every performance we want it to be a full experience for the crowd. We really want to put up a good show. 

Puhken: When the rappers from Playertwo perform, they have blockings. Everything is rehearsed properly. Even our backtracks are well-produced. Our live versions are different from what you get to hear on streaming platforms. Just like Ven mentioned, we really want to put out a show that people will go home remembering. Having a sound engineer really helped because our sound engineer is master of everything in the world [laughs]. That really helped with upping our performance because our overall goal as a group is to be able to perform in different countries.  

IVO: I remember Puhken pitching us various types of visuals because, after a while in Manila, we got to see a lot of different musicians perform and they would have their own visuals.  It has always been a conscious decision for us to really show visuals that could uplift the performance of the song and not as a distraction.          

LET’S DISCUSS ABOUT HAPPY ACCIDENTS VOL. 1. YOU HAVE EIGHT SONGS ON THE ALBUM; HOW DID YOU DECIDE WHICH SONGS TO INCLUDE IN VOLUME 1 AND WHICH TO SAVE FOR VOLUME 2? WAS THERE A SPECIFIC THEME THAT YOU FOLLOWED?

IVO: After we did a couple of session together, we came up with seven songs and that’s what we initially thought of putting in the album. Two of the songs got scrapped because after a while we made “better-ish” songs. After we decided that we want these songs to be in the album, we made songs that sounded more complex musically and those are what we want to save and show in the second volume. Happy Accidents Vol. 1, to us, sounds like fun, energy that we didn’t overthink anything. Expect the second album to be more fun, I guess. We didn’t really follow any specific theme for volume 1, it’s just raw energy. 

Puhken: If I analyze the album it’s showcasing what new music the three of them (Wave P, Luke, IVO) can bring in the Philippines. It’s a showcase of skills and potential. 

IVO: Musically it sounds like a mixed tape.  

YOUR MUSIC HAS A MORE UPBEAT TONE THAN THE TYPICAL HIP-HOP TUNES, WHICH TENDS TO BE DARK OR FULL OF INNUENDO. IS IT A GOAL OF YOURS WHEN COMPOSING MUSIC TO AVOID TOO MUCH RISK WHILE STILL MAKING YOUR TUNES ACCESSIBLE?

Puhken: I think it depends on how you analyze it. 

Wave P: There’s one song that we have, “Tiktiktokin,” it’s about a girl you meet at the club, it’s like if you know, you know. People thought it’s a song about Tiktok but it’s not [laughs]. 

IVO: It’s a conscious decision not to write as provocative as present rappers would do. To me, rap and hip-hop now sounds very mono, it’s not as dynamic as before. It revolves around the same topics. We really want to diversify the content of hip-hop. That’s why it’s a conscious decision not to put as much risqué lyrics and topics.

HOW WERE YOU SIGNED AT WARNER MUSIC PHILIPPINES?

Wave P: We got signed because of Sir Alex Lim.

IVO: Sir Alex was the first person to reach out to Luke when he was doing his solo projects. And they knew about him being with us and the whole Playertwo movement. That’s when we started putting out our songs and “That’s my Baby” became a viral hit. And then they heard the rest of our catalog before they were released and they were really into the sound.   

Wave P: Luke was the first among us to be signed under Warner Music Philippines. 

Luke April: In 2020, that’s when I met Sir Alex. 

YOU HAVE BEEN PERFORMING IN BARS AND IN FESTIVALS. WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR FAVORITE PERFORMANCE SO FAR AND WHY?

Wave P: G Music Fest was different. For that performance, we practiced for an hour. But we weren’t able to do our blockings because we were already overwhelmed with our feelings and the flow. Everything just turned out natural.

Puhken: It was one of the biggest stages that we’ve been part of. But before that, we all have our individual favorite shows. 

Wave P: I also liked our performance in La Salle.

Puhken: I liked that one too. 

IVO: We did a show in La Salle for their Animusika Festival. All of them were singing a long, it was a different experience because we never experienced that before. 

Wave P: Luke didn’t have to sing the chorus of “That’s my Baby.”       

LOOKING AHEAD TO THE REST OF THE YEAR, WHAT ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT?

IVO: We’re very excited for the month of December because that’s filled with a lot of shows and special projects that we can’t wait to show everybody. 

Puhken: We also have a big show in Davao, it’s called Musica Evita. We’ll be playing along Lola Amour, Al James, Dilaw, to name a few. It’s a big festival in Davao this December.

Wave P: It’s our home court.

Luke April: We’ll also be performing in Singapore at the Gamescom 2023 this October.

Puhken: Our goal there is to sell ourselves. Please put our songs in your games!

Ven: The exciting part is that only Playertwo will be performing on that event, no other artists. That’s going to be fun!

Be updated with Playertwo by following them on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.