Reporting from Barrio Bounce, a traveling event series promoting budots and Southeast Asian dance music, writer Harri Chan unpacks the history of budots, from its origins in Davao City, Philippines to its current viral globalization.

Chewing on lumpia while bobbing to the pulsing rhythms of Filipino American DJ WILHELMINA on the dance floor at Mood Ring, Chan considers how this genre of electronic music roots itself in the diaspora. “When we play budots, it isn’t done as a meme—we play it in a decolonial sense,” said WILHELMINA. “Too often we use western/European dance music as a frame of reference when considering the validity of dance music genres. There is something profound about how powerful budots is and how it can make everyone move.”