Tiny Desk Contest winner Ruby Ibarra stuns at her Philly debut

Since the early years of NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Contest, a tour with the winner was part of the package. It made it so the victor didn’t just get spotlighted on a virtual stage, the wildly popular Tiny Desk Concert series, but they also got to play literal stages around the country for throngs of newfound fans, introducing them to a full set of their music beyond the song that caught everyone’s ear. This year’s winner approached the Tiny Desk tour a little differently, however.

Ruby Ibarra won the contest with a breathtaking performance of “Bakunawa,” an atmospheric song written while she was pregnant with her first language and performed in English, Tagalog and Bisaya. When she played her Tiny Desk Concert post-victory, NPR’s Elle Mannion praised Ibarra for “switching effortlessly between the three languages from one verse to the next” on this song described as being about “about Filipino folklore and motherhood.”

Introducing Ibarra at The Foundry of The Fillmore Philadelphia this week, World Cafe’s Raina Douris — one of the Tiny Desk Contest judges — spoke about how Ibarra’s submission video blew her away, and said her reaction was “I need to see her live.” Ibarra took the stage with a sprawling band and played a stunning “Bakunawa” to open the set. And that’s where the show sort of departed the script.

The song, Ibarra explained, was rooted in collaboration and a celebration of heritage, and so she announced that she would cede the stage to one of her collaborators: 77-year-old June Millington, playing guitar at stage right, who in the 70s led Fanny, an all-female rock band from L.A. A beaming Millington talked about the turbulent era she came from, played a garage rock ripper called “Girls On The Road,” and Ibarra remarked that as much as the music industry can be challenging for her as a Filipino woman in 2025, she can’t imagine what it must have been like in the 70s.

Ibarra next took a moment to talk about one of her proudest undertakings beyond the contest and the tour — co-founding Bolo Music Group, an independent label highlighting and celebrating Filipino American artists. One of the artists, Ouida, features on “Bakunawa” and both versions of its Tiny Desk video (Tiny Desk Contest submission, Tiny Desk Concert); she is also a backing vocalist in Ibarra’s touring band. The spotlight turned to her for a performance of “Everybody’s Girl,” a single Ouida plans to release later this summer with simmering neo-soul / R&B tones.

The tail end of the set did turn the focus back to Ibarra, as she led the room in audience participation on “The Realness” and dove into the thick of the crowd for a pummeling performance of “Taking Names,” cementing the solid impression she left on Philly. Her 2017 album Circa91 is streaming on Bandcamp — read a review of the record by XPN contributor Sameer Rao — along with recent singles and remixes.

The Tiny Desk On The Road concert opened up with the local Latin fusion band De Tierre Caliente and closed out with a heavy-hitting performance by Philly indie rock favorites Sheer Mag, playing their only concert of the summer and keeping the vibes high with cuts like “Steel Sharpens Steel,” “Expect The Bayonet,” and “Fan The Flames.” Check out photos of the night below by WXPN contributor Danielle Ciampaglia.