It's cute news when a foreigner sings a Filipino song. But it's something to really spread about when an artist, an American lady based in Las Vegas, expressed her love for Tagalog songs with intense sincerity; then proved it with a likable take of an OPM (Original Pilipino Music) classic which she formally released in digital stores.
Dubbed the American Anthem Diva and the official singer for minor league NASCAR events, Sahara is bent on surprising Filipino music lovers with her rendition of "Dahil Ba Sa Kanya," a track popularized by Jaya and written by Freddie Saturno. Amusingly, too, it's her debut single.
"I was watching a travel video on YouTube, and the song was playing in the background as the host was walking down the street,” she recalled. “When I heard it, I just felt deep inside my heart a pain, a longing, something truly lost. Not to mention Jaya’s soulful rendition. And when I read the translation, I understood why I felt that way."
Thanks in part to the good reputation of Filipino musicians working abroad. As Sahara witnessed herself, many of the best performers she found in the world-famous strip are Filipinos. She had become close to some of them, and considers Filipina vocalists to be, according to her, among the finest in the world.
The Vegas singer met Saturno by way of virtual meeting to ask permission to cover his composition.
Sahara implied that once she learned "Dahil Ba Sa Kanya," she fell further for Tagalog OPM. "The language is such an integral part of the music," she noted, "So much meaning and emotion in so few words. It’s truly beautiful."
A classically trained singer, the American beauty can spend all day praising the sentimental Pinoy lyricism. Yes she can also belt out in Spanish, French, Italian. and German, but she loves Tagalog the most for “the unique way it expresses emotion and meaning."
Sahara is one-half of multimedia duo NeonDuet which released last June an EDM piece called (We Can Be) As One. The other one, Michael Todd “m.t.” Glazier, is her husband. They built a music studio when the current pandemic struck.
With "Dahil Ba Sa Kanya" already out, Sahara pursues more OPM gems by working with an album of originals crafted by Filipino composers and arrangers.
Asked what other OPM songs she enjoys listening to, she noted she can’t get enough of "Sayang na Sayang" by Aegis. By her account, she listens to it at least once a day and always gets "chills."
Apart from Jaya and Aegis, Sahara also digs the singing of Regine Velasquez-Alcasid, Kyla, and Jake Zyrus (formerly Charice). She pointed out that even when she sings in a foreign language, she makes sure to understand the words and idioms relating to their culture of origin.
For that, she chooses to flatter Pinoys with very big words: "To be honest, the passion in OPM is missing in so much of modern Western music. The world could learn something from OPM. I can’t imagine singing anything else."