PETE MAGOFNA

On an island where American culture is large part of everyday life, local rap artist Pete Magofna found the need to use his talent as a musician to reach younger generations in hopes of preserving the Chamorro language.

“I find it very important for us to keep the language because I realize that my generation and the younger generation…we’re losing our language,” he said during an interview. “We understand it but we’re having a hard time speaking it, and I figured that if I can rap in Chamorro and get everybody to listen to my music, especially the younger generation, I hope it would make them proud of who they are and try to pick up the language. Basically it has a lot to do with my pride of who I am. I am half African-American, but I’m straight up islander. This is where I was born, raised, everything.”

The 24-year-old Magofna, who admires both local and hip-hop tunes, recently completed his first music video that is scheduled to debut on Thursday’s Marianas Music Videos on KMCV channel 7.

The song in the video, entitled Daggao Hulo I Kannai-Mu, was written about seven years ago and, according to Magofna, sends the message stressing the importance of “being proud of who you are.”

“The song is about throwing your hands up, representing where you’re from, and enjoying it while your doing it,” he said. “The message I’m trying to send out is that no matter what language, be proud of who you are, and have a good time doing it. The reason why I stuck to this song, I want to let the new generation understand that you can keep the language and pursue your music career also.”

“When we [Magofna and MMV producer AJ Baldevia] were working on the outline of my video, I wanted a song and video so hot that it’s going to make people proud of being from Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Rota,” Magofna said.

Magofna and Baldevia spent two weeks working on the video, which the two agreed was two weeks of hard work.

“We spent close to 200 hours for video footage, editing, getting people together, and it’s just really hard work, and to think that all of this, hundreds of hours, just to go into four minutes of a song,” Magofna said. “I am so satisfied with what we’ve accomplished. For AJ, this is just to prove that he’s not a joke, he’s the real deal. Our heart and soul was poured into this and it really means a lot to us.”

“We’ve come to a point where we’ve raised the notch in our production, and Pete is such a meticulous artist. I had to really plays close attention to what he wanted,” Baldevia said. “I have to make sure he’s happy. Once I work with an artist who knows what he wants, I feel that my job is partially done. With this video, we’re creating history. The song itself is very closely tied to islands and it’s an attitude that comes off and kicks you in the butt. It’s the first rap video to incorporate the Chamorro language, the hip-hip feel, and a touch of heavy metal rock and roll.”

THE BEGINNING

Magofna, who enjoyed listening to hip-hop artists such as Dr. Dre and Tupac Shakur, as well as local artists K.C. and Frank Pangelinan, got interested in the music industry when he was 12.

“Back then, I always wondered why there wasn’t any Chamorro music put together with hip hop,” he said. “I would write the lyrics to Tupac and Dr. Dre and begin to rap it. I got tired of doing that because it’s not mine, so I started writing my own lyrics. I wanted to write my own lyrics in Chamorro and let everybody know that you can rap in Chamorro and make it sound good, so that’s what I did.”

Magofna’s demo—a song with lyrics in both English and Chamorro—found its way to a local radio station, and from there, his musical career began.

He soon found himself living in the mainland, a time that he said boosted his strive to pursue his dream.

“I’ve been gone for seven years…I’ve been doing research for about three years in regards to equipment and how to use them, and I later decided that I wanted to produce my own stuff because I got tired of depending on other people,” he said. “In the [mainland], it gave me an opportunity to be away from home and to look at my life again. It gave me the isolation I needed and the time to learn to use the equipment, and put my rhymes together. I can focus.”

Magofna returned to Saipan and searched for a venue to pursue his musical career, finding it at Da Studio.

“I came to Da Studio and met AJ one day, and I love his vision. He knows where he’s going, and he’s a hard working guy. He’s somebody that I now look up to. I started to see his capabilities and what I found out was that the sky is the limit with AJ.”

THE FUTURE

After completing his first video, Magofna said he is already producing his next song and creating a video to go along with it.

“I know I just completed this one, but I’m already working on my next video,” he said. “It’s a love song, and we would like to get a single out soon featuring two to three songs with two DVDs of music videos. We want to get that out to the market as soon as possible because people are asking already. This is just the beginning.”

Magofna said he visualizes a positive future, but also credits others for the success of his new video, as well as his career.

“I give a lot to Lord Jesus, my father Antonio S. Cabrera and my mother Estella Magofna; my brothers and sisters, MMV board Ed Camacho, Sheryl Camacho, AJ Baldevia, Frank Pangelinan, and Marcel Camacho; also Lupe, Florence, Max, Gary, Kurt, Jenny, Ando, Mar, Walter, Antonio, JP, and the other models.”

He also recognized other artists who influenced him, including John Guerrero, Audi Fleming, Lawrence Hocog, John Asuncion, Alex Magofna, and Leif Pangelinan.”